KING’S has fallen from 32nd place to 40th in the 2015 Guardian universities ranking, released yesterday.
The university has dropped year on year from 21st in 2009 when the guide began, with this being the largest fall in position yet.
The Guardian yesterday published its league tables for the next academic year, with King’s continuing its decline.
This comes after last month’s Complete University Guide pushed King’s down from 19th last year to 28th.
King’s is now the lowest ranked Russell Group university in London after Queen Mary bagged 32nd place, and is second worst out of the 24 unis in the Russell Group.
Elsewhere UCL fell from 5th to 11th and LSE dropped from four places to 7th whilst Imperial rose from 9th to 5th. Cambridge remains number one.
The reason for King’s fall is mixed, with its score declining in seven out of the nine categories used to place universities.
Student satisfaction, based on the National Student Survey (NSS), fell from 85% to 82.9%. A spokesperson from King’s had earlier described the results of the NSS “disappointing in some areas”.
The percentage of final year students satisfied with their course teaching dropped one percent to 87%, whilst those satisfied with feedback and assessment declined from 65.4% to 64%.
19th in the world
The percentage of students either finding graduate-level jobs or continuing with further study within six months of graduation fell from 84% to 82.2%, although this is still one of the highest levels in the country.
This is in stark contrast to last year’s international university league tables, with QS ranking KCL at 19th, leaving King’s within the top 50 universities in the world in two rankings.
The reason for the difference is largely due to the use of student satisfaction scores in domestic rankings.
Out of the three main domestic university guides only the Sunday Times is left to publish its rankings for the next academic year.
KCLSU were unavailable for comment.
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