# The best universities in the world (QS 2026)

The top 20 of the QS World University Rankings 2026, published in June 2025. MIT is number one for the 14th year in a row, and eight of the top 20 are American.

- 5 votes · 21 items
- Jun 28, 2026 · Ellie Reid
- https://even.best/en/l/388/the-best-universities-in-the-world-qs-2026

## Top 20

1. **Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. QS number one for the 14th consecutive year.
2. **National University of Singapore (NUS)** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Singapore. The highest-ranked university in Asia.
3. **Peking University** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Beijing, China. One of China's two leading universities.
4. **Cornell University** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Ithaca, New York, USA. Ivy League.
5. **Imperial College London** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — London, UK. Science, engineering, medicine and business; second for the second year running.
6. **Stanford University** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Stanford, California, USA. The heart of Silicon Valley.
7. **University of Oxford** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Oxford, UK. The oldest university in the English-speaking world.
8. **Harvard University** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Founded in 1636, the oldest in the US.
9. **University of Cambridge** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Cambridge, UK. Founded in 1209; Newton, Darwin and Hawking studied or worked there.
10. **ETH Zurich** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Zurich, Switzerland. The best in continental Europe; Einstein studied there.
11. **UCL (University College London)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — London, UK. Founded in 1826 and the first in England to admit students regardless of religion.
12. **California Institute of Technology (Caltech)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Pasadena, California, USA. Small but mighty; it runs NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
13. **The University of Hong Kong** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Hong Kong. Founded in 1911.
14. **Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore)** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Singapore. A young university, founded in 1991.
15. **University of Chicago** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Chicago, USA. Home of the 'Chicago school' of economics.
16. **University of Pennsylvania** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Philadelphia, USA. Founded by Benjamin Franklin.
17. **Tsinghua University** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Beijing, China. China's engineering powerhouse.
18. **The University of Melbourne** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Melbourne, Australia. Australia's top-ranked university.
19. **UNSW Sydney** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Sydney, Australia. The University of New South Wales.
20. **Yale University** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Ivy League university founded in 1701 in New Haven, Connecticut.
21. **University of California, Berkeley** (-1 · ▲0 ▼1) — Berkeley, California, USA. The leading public university in the US.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.