Our star rating, explained

Australia has no official government star rating for universities. Quality is assured differently here: TEQSA registers every higher-education provider and decides which may use the title "university", every course offered to an international student must be listed on CRICOS, and the government publishes real outcome data — graduate employment, salaries and student experience — through the QILT surveys at compared.edu.au. Those are the official instruments, and none of them is a star rating.

To make comparison easier, TopUniAustralia shows an editorial 1-to-6 star band. It is not a government score and not a separate judgement: it is simply a readable summary of our published composite score, which is built only from figures someone else published — the institution's QS World position, its CRICOS registered capacity for overseas students, the breadth of courses it actually holds on the register, its international student share and its student-support signals. Full weights are on our ranking methodology page.

The six tiers

What the star rating reflects

• Reputation & selectivity — academic standing and how competitive admission is.
• Research & resources — research output, faculty and campus facilities.
• Outcomes — graduate success and employability.

How we use it

On TopUniAustralia, a university’s star rating appears on its profile as e.g. “Star rating 6/6 ★”. It is one signal in our ranking methodology, alongside QS World positions and other factors. Ratings are indicative — always confirm a university’s accreditation and standing with official sources.