Cambridge University has fallen in a global higher education ranking, partly because it has spent more on teaching.
It is rated seventh in the QS World University Rankings, down one place and a historic low. It was second in 2015.
Two thirds of Britain’s universities in the annual table have fallen in the past year. The authors of the study said this was partly because of crowded classes and employer dissatisfaction.
The rankings reward the ratio of staff to citations in academic journals. The report said: “The rate by which Cambridge has increased its faculty numbers, relative to its peers, is greater than the rate at which its research performance has improved, relative to its peers. This means that Cambridge’s citations per faculty performance drops.”