(The Center Square) – A new report is sounding an alarm about the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s place among America’s and the world’s best schools.

The report from the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy at UW-Madison tracks the Madison campus’ ranking among the top 50 universities since 2003.

“UW-Madison’s ranking among America’s best colleges dropped significantly, from a high of 31st in 2003 to a low of 49th in 2019, before bouncing back to 35th in 2024,” the report states. “However, the rankings of most graduate programs at UW-Madison declined over the last 15 years without experiencing a similar recovery.”

Economists Kim J. Ruhl and Ananth Seshadri tracked UW-Madison’s rankings from multiple agencies and publications when it came to undergraduate quality, graduate quality and rankings for R&D expenditures.

“UW-Madison’s rankings among America’s best undergraduate colleges

dropped significantly in the 2010s before bouncing back in the last five years. UW-Madison’s rankings of many graduate programs, however, have deteriorated without a similar recovery, and so has its R&D expenditure rankings. Internationally, UW-Madison’s global ranking also declined in the last decade, reducing the competitiveness of its graduates in the global labor market,” the authors noted.

The report states UW-Madison is considered the 35th best university in America by US News & World Report, which is the most popular ranking for colleges and universities. But the report also states that according to the WSJ/College Pulse rankings, UW-Madison is the 79th best school.

The CROWE report also states many individual programs at UW-Madison have been falling in the rankings for years.

“Between 2010 and 2024, the departments with the largest declines in ranking include nursing (from 19th to 66th); business (MBA) (from 28th to 43rd); engineering (from 16th to 27th); and medicine (Research) (from 27th to 36th),” the report adds. “Since 2010, a few graduate programs at UW-Madison have maintained their rankings. This list includes biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, political science and psychology. Only a few increased their rankings including History and Education, which is now the best in the country.”

The report also noted that as UW-Madison’s rating have fallen, so has its acceptance as one of the best universities in the world.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings now have UW-Madison outside of the top 50.

“After fluctuating around 50th for a few years, it then dropped again to 58th in 2022, and to 81st in 2023,” the report states. “The latest ranking is 63rd, significantly lower than it was 10 years ago.”

The QSWorld University Rankings rank UW-Madison as the 102nd best school in the world.

That has pushed UW-Madison out of preferred status for programs like the UK’s preferred list for doctors, and China’s list of top universities for civil service jobs in that country.

Perhaps most worrisome, according to the report, is that UW-Madison’s ranking as a research university has slipped as well.

“UW-Madison never dropped below fourth place until 2015, when its ranking fell to sixth, and never dropped below sixth until 2018, when its ranking was eighth. In 2022, the last year when the ranking was available, UW-Madison was at eight place, behind Johns Hopkins University, UC-San Francisco, UPenn, U Michigan, UW-Seattle, UCLA and UC-San Diego,” the report adds.

The CROWE report does not offer an opinion as to why UW-Madison has fallen, or what the university needs to do to reverse its falling rankings.

The university has pleaded with lawmakers for more money for more than a decade now. But the UW System as a whole has also seen a dip in enrollment, and a lack of interest in most campuses outside of Madison.