Top 100 Universities in The World in 2025

League tables rank universities on a wide variety of factors. This list from the 2025 QS World University Rankings is based on six criteria: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international student ratio and international faculty ratio.

For several years now, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology near Boston has been named the best university in the world. The Anglo-American world dominates the top of the list, with eight out of the top ten universities being either in the USA or the United Kingdom — only ETH Zurich and the National University of Singapore are represented in the top ten outside of these two countries. The cities with the most universities on the list are Hong Kong (5) and London (4).

We also have an article on the best universities in the world for different subjects if you’re interested in finding out which institutions are best for your area of focus.

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA

The perennial number 1 on this list, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the Boston metropolitan area. MIT is especially well-known for its strong programs in fields such as engineering and computer science, but it is also among the world’s best universities in areas like linguistics and accounting.

2. Imperial College London, UK

The highest-rated of the four London universities on this list, Imperial focuses on science, technology, business and medicine.

3. University of Oxford, UK

The oldest university on this list, the University of Oxford is the second-oldest university in the world in continuous operation and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Oxford is the home of the world-famous Rhodes Scholarship and the Oxford University Press, the largest university press in the world.

4. Harvard University, USA

Funnily enough, of the five best universities in the world, three are located in a city named Cambridge. Like MIT, Harvard is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts near Boston. Part of the prestigious Ivy League, Harvard is the oldest university in the United States.

5. University of Cambridge, UK

Pipped this year by Oxford, the University of Cambridge offers the highest quality of education in a wide range of subjects, being among the best universities in the world in fields such as arts & humanities, engineering and history.

6. Stanford University, USA

Leland Stanford Junior University, or just Stanford University for short, is located in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Being among the best universities in the world in many disciplines, the university is affectionately nicknamed Nerd Nation.

7. ETH Zurich, Switzerland

ETH Zurich is the only university in the top 10 from mainland Europe. It has particularly strong programs in science and technology.

8. National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

The National University of Singapore has climbed the world rankings steadily in recent years and has now broken into the top 10.

9. University College London (UCL), UK

University College London offers world-class education in a great location, with the university’s campus being in Bloomsbury in central London.

10. California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA

Caltech is especially well known for its programs in the natural sciences, and for being the university where the main characters in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory work.

11. University of Pennsylvania, USA

12. University of California, Berkeley, USA

13. University of Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne in Australia is the home of two universities on this list.

14. Peking University, China

15. Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore

16. Cornell University, USA

17. University of Hong Kong, China

18. University of Sydney, Australia

19. University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Australia

20. Tsinghua University, China

21. University of Chicago, USA

22. Princeton University, USA

23. Yale University, USA

24. Université PSL, France

25. University of Toronto, Canada

26. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

27. University of Edinburgh, UK

28. Technical University of Munich, Germany

29. McGill University, Canada

30. Australian National University, Australia

31. Seoul National University, South Korea

=32. Johns Hopkins University, USA

=32. University of Tokyo, Japan

=34. Columbia University, USA

=34. University of Manchester, UK

36. Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

37. Monash University, Australia

38. University of British Columbia, Canada

39. Fudan University, China

=40. King’s College London, UK

King’s College London is one of the four universities in London to make this list.

=40. University of Queensland, Australia

42. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA

43. New York University (NUY), USA

44. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (UMich), USA

45. Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

46. Polytechnic Institute of Paris, France

47. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,

China

A sculpture outside the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

48. Zhejian University, China

49. Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

50. Kyoto University, Japan

51. Northwestern University, USA

52. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK

53. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea

This futuristic building is on the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

54. University of Bristol, UK

55. University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

56. Yonsei University, South Korea

57. Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

58. Carnegie Mellon University, USA

59. Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany

60. University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia

61. Duke University, USA

62. City University of Hong Kong, China

=63. KU Leuven, Netherlands

=63. Sorbonne University, France

65. University of Auckland, New Zealand

The University of Auckland is the highest-rated university in New Zealand.

66. University of Texas at Austin, USA

67. Korea University, South Korea

68. National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan

=69. University of Warwick, UK

=69. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

71. University of Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina

72. University of California, San Diego, USA

73. Paris-Saclay University, France

74. KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

75. Lund University, Sweden

This ivy-covered building belongs to Lund University.

76. University of Washington, USA

77. University of Western Australia, Australia

78. University of Glasgow, UK

This historic building with the beautiful arches is part of the University of Glasgow.

79. Brown University, USA

=80. University of Birmingham, UK

=80. University of Southampton, UK

=82. University of Adelaide, Australia

=82. University of Leeds, UK

=84. Heidelberg University, Germany

=84. Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

86. Osaka University, Japan

87. Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

88. University of Technology Sydney, Australia

=89. Durham University, UK

Durham Castles houses Durham University’s University College.

=89. Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), USA

=89. Purdue University, USA

92. University of São Paulo, Brazil

93. Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Chile

94. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

95. National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico

96. University of Alberta, Canada

97. Free University of Berlin, Germany

98. Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), South Korea

99. RWTH Aachen University, Germany

100. University of Copenhagen, Denmark

The two dominant forces in the list are the Anglo-American countries and East Asia. More than a quarter (27) of the universities in the top 100 are in the United States, while the United Kingdom has 17 universities on the list. In Asia, China tops the list, followed by South Korea and Japan.

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