The UGC NET June 2026 cutoff has brought a distinctly mixed picture for candidates. A comparison of the subject-wise cutoff data with the December 2025 and June 2025 sessions shows that cutoffs have not moved uniformly upward or downward.
For a meaningful comparison, the analysis below focuses on the Unreserved category and compares the cutoffs for JRF and Assistant Professor in subjects that appear across all three sessions. The official cutoff PDFs list separate marks and candidate counts for JRF, Assistant Professor and PhD-only categories.
Geography has emerged as one of the strongest upward movers. Its Unreserved JRF cutoff climbed from 216 in June 2025 to 224 in December 2025 and then to 250 in June 2026.
That means:
+26 marks over December 2025
+34 marks over June 2025
Assistant Professor cutoff also increased to 220, up 26 marks from December 2025 and 28 marks from June 2025
The June 2026 Geography cutoff records 250 for JRF and 220 for Assistant Professor in the Unreserved category
This makes Geography one of the clearest examples of a sustained upward cutoff trend across the three-session comparison
Education recorded another significant rise. Its JRF cutoff increased from 208 in December 2025 to 232 in June 2026, a 24-mark jump
Compared with June 2025, the increase is even more pronounced — 26 marks. The Assistant Professor cutoff rose from 180 in December 2025 to 206 in June 2026
The pattern suggests that candidates targeting Education faced a considerably higher cutoff threshold in June 2026 than in either of the previous comparison sessions
At the other end of the spectrum, Psychology witnessed a substantial fall.
The JRF cutoff dropped: 248 → 234 → 204 from June 2025 to December 2025 and June 2026 respectively
That represents a 30-mark fall from December 2025 and a much larger 44-mark fall from June 2025
The Assistant Professor cutoff followed the same direction, falling from 226 in June 2025 to 206 in December 2025 and 180 in June 2026
Political Science presents a different pattern.
Its JRF cutoff moved from 244 in June 2025 to 214 in December 2025, before recovering to 222 in June 2026.
So, the June 2026 cutoff is:
8 marks higher than December 2025
22 marks lower than June 2025
The Assistant Professor cutoff follows an almost identical pattern, moving from 218 to 188 and then 196.
In other words, Political Science has recovered from the December low but has not returned to its June 2025 level.
The strongest increases from June 2025 to June 2026 among the common subjects include:
Persian: JRF +46
Ayurveda Biology: JRF +38
Physical Education: JRF +34
Geography: JRF +34
Economics: JRF +26
Education: JRF +26
Philosophy: JRF +14
Persian is particularly noteworthy: its JRF cutoff reached 254 in June 2026, making it one of the highest cutoffs in the dataset.
Some subjects have moved sharply in the opposite direction:
Manipuri: JRF −86 from June 2025
Bodo: JRF −46
Psychology: JRF −44
Gujarati: JRF −36
Sindhi: JRF −32
The decline in Psychology is therefore not an isolated small fluctuation; it is among the more substantial movements across the three-session comparison.
For candidates preparing for the next UGC NET cycle, the bigger lesson is clear: a one-session comparison can be misleading. The three-session trend gives a much better picture of whether a subject's cutoff is genuinely rising, temporarily fluctuating or moving downward.
