In a world where education goes beyond borders and excellence is judged globally, the 2025 edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World varsity Rankings highlights top academic and innovative achievements.
In our previous post, we talked about the 2025 edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Africa University Rankings.
The latest university rankings were released on Tuesday, June 4, and include a record 1,500 universities from 106 countries, showing the wide reach of higher education.
According to the website, the rankings incorporate both employability and sustainability factors into their methodology.
The United States and the United Kingdom each had four universities on the list of the top ten universities in the world. Singapore and Switzerland completed the list with one university each.
Leading the list are universities like MIT, Imperial College London, and Harvard, which excel not only in traditional measures but also in employability and sustainability. The rankings show a changing landscape where some universities maintain their top spots, while others make significant progress.
This year’s rankings tell stories of ambition, dedication, and breakthroughs in global education. Join us as we look at the top ten universities that stand out in the QS World University Rankings 2025.
Below are the top ten universities in the world according to the QS World University Rankings 2025:
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), United States
2. Imperial College London, United Kingdom
3. University of Oxford, United Kingdom
4. Harvard University, United States
5. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
6. Stanford University, United States
7. ETH Zürich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
8. National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
9. University College London, United Kingdom
10. California Institute of Technology (Caltech), United States.
Note: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford were ranked the top three universities in the world in the 2024 edition.
New Entrants
The QS World University Rankings 2025 feature 21 newly ranked institutions. The highest debut is the American University of Ras Al Khaimah (AURAK) in the United Arab Emirates, ranked 485th. The university scored 100 in the indicators for ‘International students’ and ‘International faculty.’
Global Highlights of the QS World University Rankings 2025
Universities in China and India have experienced the most significant upward movements in the QS World University Rankings 2025, both in terms of the number of institutions improving their ranking positions and the number of significant jumps (defined as 10 places or more).
Other highlights in institutional performance globally are:
UK
The UK performs best in the ‘International Student Ratio’ indicator, achieving the world’s second-highest average score among countries with ten or more ranked universities, just behind Saudi Arabia. This highlights the global appeal of UK higher education institutions and their success in attracting a diverse student body.
US
The US continues to have one of the world’s most renowned higher education systems, recognized by both employers and academics. This is evident in the rankings, as four of the top ten universities—Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley (UCB)—achieved a perfect score of 100 in the ‘Academic reputation’ indicator.
Canada
Canadian universities are performing exceptionally in ‘Sustainability’, with two institutions ranking among the world’s top five, including the University of Toronto, which is recognized as the world’s most sustainable university.
Australia
Three Australian institutions rank among the world’s top 20, with the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney each moving up one position to 13th and 18th, respectively. Australia also leads in ‘International Research’ in the Asia-Pacific region, holding nine of the top 10 positions.
Africa
South Africa occupies the top four positions in the African continent’s rankings, with the University of Cape Town being the highest at 171st globally, up two places from the previous year. Cairo University in Egypt rounds out the top five in Africa, ranking 350th worldwide.
Latin America
Latin America has four representatives in the top 100, each from one of its four largest economies: Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) in Argentina (71st), Universidade de São Paulo in Brazil (92nd), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC) in Chile (93rd), and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico (94th).