This is the best university in the U.S, according to global rankings—it isn’t an Ivy League

Ivy League institutions consistently rank at the top of U.S.-based college rankings. 

Princeton University earned the top spot on both The Wall Street Journal’s and U.S. News and World Report’s rankings for 2024.

But global rankings are a different story.

The University of Oxford in the United Kingdom was named the best university in the world for the eighth year in a row, according to Times Higher Education’s ranking of over 1,900 universities worldwide. Oxford, the world’s second-oldest university, continues to be a global leader in academic research and instruction nine centuries after its conception.

Times Higher Education uses metrics across five areas — teaching, research environment, research quality, industry innovations and international outlook — to rank universities around the world. Where many of the popular U.S.-based college rankings look at factors like financial aid and social atmosphere, these global rankings are focused on the school’s academic rigor. 

Though the U.S. doesn’t hold the top spot, the next three best-ranked universities are American — but the two highest-ranked ones aren’t Ivy League schools.

The top-ranked universities all earn high scores across metrics, but Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a slight edge over the Ivy League institutions, thanks to both of their high industry contribution scores. Both universities received the highest score possible (100) for their contributions to commercial research and innovation, which highlights how often companies want to partner with these institutions to perform or fund research.

Harvard and Princeton fell short in that area, earning an 84 and 95, respectively, for their industry reputation. Neither university earned a perfect score in any of the categories.

Oxford University comes out on top overall, however, for its high scores across metrics and in particular, a perfect score for its research environment. The historic institution facilitates frequent, respected and lucrative research, according to Times Higher Education’s analysis.

Here are the top 20 universities in the world, according to Times Higher Education:

1. The University of Oxford — Oxford, United Kingdom
2. Stanford University — Stanford, California, United States
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Boston, United States
4. Harvard University — Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
5. University of Cambridge — Cambridge, United Kingdom
6. Princeton University — Princeton, New Jersey, United States
7. California Institute of Technology — Pasadena, California, United States
8. Imperial College London — London, United Kingdom
9. University of California, Berkeley — Berkeley, California, United States
10. Yale University — New Haven, Connecticut, United States
11. ETH Zurich — Zurich, Switzerland
12. Tsinghua University — Beijing, China
13. The University of Chicago — Chicago, United States
14. Peking University — Beijing, China
15. Johns Hopkins University — Baltimore, United States
16. University of Pennsylvania — Philadelphia, United States
17. Columbia University — New York, United States
18. University of California, Los Angeles — Los Angeles, United States
19. National University of Singapore — Singapore
20. Cornell University — Ithaca, New York, United States

Times Higher Education used 18 indicators within the five metric areas to rank universities. The teaching environment and research metrics are weighted the heaviest and consider the following factors:

Research quality (30%)

• Impact of university’s research
• Strength of research
• Quantity of top-ranked publications
• Frequency of citations

Teaching (29.5%)

• Teaching reputation
• Student to faculty ratio
• Ratio of doctorate to bachelor’s degrees awarded
• Ratio of doctorate degree-holders among staff
• University’s income

Research environment (29%)

• Research reputation
• Research-driven income
• Productivity

The other two areas — international outlook (7.5%) and industry innovations (4%) — are less weighted, but consider factors like number of international students and staff, study abroad programs, number of patents supported by the university and income generated through businesses paying for a university’s research.

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