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2025 2026 Best Universities In The World Us News

Bonisiwe Shabane
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2025 2026 best universities in the world us news

These institutions from the U.S. and more than 100 other countries have been ranked based on 13 indicators that measure their academic research performance and their global and regional reputations. Students can use these rankings to explore the higher education options that exist beyond their own countries' borders and to compare key aspects of schools' research missions. These are the world's 2,250 top universities. Read the methodology » To unlock more data and access tools to help you get into your dream school, sign up for the U.S.

News College Compass! Founded in 1636, Harvard University is the oldest higher education institution in the U.S. The bulk of Harvard's... Read More Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1861, is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston. Around...

Read More Stanford University was founded in 1885 and is located in California’s Bay Area, around 30 miles south of San Francisco... Read More The newest edition evaluates schools from more than 100 countries. WASHINGTON, June 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- U.S. News & World Report, the global authority in education rankings and consumer advice, today published the 2025-2026 Best Global Universities rankings, which evaluate more than 2,250 schools on academic research and reputation.

The latest edition includes universities from more than 100 countries. The following countries have the most schools in the overall rankings: "The Best Global Universities rankings provide valuable benchmarks for students considering international study options or seeking institutions with a strong global research impact," said LaMont Jones, Ed.D., managing editor for Education at U.S. News. "The rankings – one of many tools that U.S. News offers to assist with college decision-making – help students identify universities with worldwide recognition and cross-border academic excellence that can serve as a launching pad for their careers."

Of the 51 subject rankings, eight will have more schools ranked this year, including: agricultural sciences; artificial intelligence; computer science; electrical and electronic engineering; engineering; gastroenterology and hepatology; plant and animal science and polymer... Choosing a university can be one of the biggest decisions a student can make. Today, students are often making this choice not just on a local scale but a global scale. Last year, it was estimated that more than 1.1 million international students alone came to the U.S. to study. The numbers grow even higher when you consider the rest of the globe.

This was a 7% increase from the previous year. To help students gain a sense of their options when it comes to choosing a university, U.S. News is back with its Best Global Universities Rankings 2025-2026, now in its 11th year. Their Best Global Universities Rankings are frequented by students, families, and institutions. This report shows detailed breakdowns by region, country, and enrollment, then dives deeper to rank universities across specific subject areas such as engineering, economics, and artificial intelligence. How are these rankings decided behind the scenes?

To piece together which institution landed where in the 2025–2026 Best Global Universities Rankings, U.S. News considered 2,250 top research universities spanning across 105 countries. From this selection, they accepted 2,346 institutions that either earned strong academic reputations or published at least 1,250 scholarly papers between 2019 and 2023. The final rankings were based on thirteen indicators tied to research performance, including global reputation, citation impact, and international collaboration. A key component of their methodology was Clarivate’s Academic Reputation Survey. For this survey cycle, 5,016 academics from 129 countries and territories were included, giving their field and department-level assessments of universities.

The survey is invitation-only and weighted to ensure geographic diversity. The amount of gathered surveys went down some this year from 6,564 respondents the previous year and from the peak of 7,712 in 2020, although they remain higher than the 2021 and 2022 survey... U.S. News & World Report has released its 2025–2026 Best Global Universities rankings, evaluating 2,250 universities from more than 100 countries. The rankings are based on academic research performance and reputation, using bibliometric indicators and data from Clarivate’s Web of Science Core Collection and InCites Benchmarking & Analytics. U.S.

News & World Report is a Washington-based media company that publishes independent rankings and analysis across sectors such as education, health, finance, and travel. The Best Global Universities rankings support students in identifying institutions with recognized global research strength. China leads the overall rankings with 397 institutions, followed by the United States with 280. Other countries with high representation include India (118), Japan (104), and the United Kingdom (93). Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (U.S.) University of California Berkeley (U.S.)

Nineteen United States institutions nabbed top positions in the top 100 global universities, according to 2025-2026 U.S. News and World Report rankings. Of those, Harvard University earned first place and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took second. Stanford University was third, followed by the University of California, Berkeley in sixth, the University of Washington, Seattle in eighth, Yale University in ninth and Columbia University in 10th. Outside of the top 10, were the University of California Los Angeles (13), Johns Hopkins University (14) and the University of Pennyslvania (15). Cornell University, Princeton University, the University of California San Francisco all took 16th place.

AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom. U.S. News & World Report named two Illinois universities in the top 10 in its recent ranking of the nation’s best universities for 2026, and one St. Louis institution made the top 20. Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University and Yale University took the top five positions in the recent report, with Stanford and Yale tied for fourth. The University of Chicago was Illinois’ top-ranked university from U.S.

News & World Report’s list, landing in sixth place. Founded in 1890, it is known for its medical school, economics program and liberal arts education. Northwestern University also made the cut, tied in seventh place with Duke University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania. Northwestern was founded in 1851 and also ranked highly in U.S. News & World Report’s “best value schools” and engineering doctorate program lists.

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Of the 51 subject rankings, eight will have more schools ranked this year, including: agricultural sciences; artificial intelligence; computer science; electrical and electronic engineering; engineering; gastroenterology and hepatology; plant and animal science and polymer... Choosing a university can be one of the biggest decisions a student can make. Today, students are often making this choice ...