Overview

College and university rankings order higher education institutions based on various criteria, with factors differing depending on the specific ranking system. These rankings can be conducted at the national or international level, assessing institutions within a single country, within a specific geographical region, or worldwide. Rankings are typically conducted by magazines, newspapers, websites, governments, or academics. In addition to ranking entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools can be ranked. Some rankings consider measures of wealth, excellence in research, selective admissions, and alumni success. Rankings may also consider various combinations of measures of specialization expertise, student options, award numbers, internationalization, graduate employment, industrial linkage, historical reputation and other criteria. == Criticism == The interpretation, accuracy, and usefulness of rankings have been criticized. The expanding diversity in rating methodologies and accompanying criticisms of each indicate the lack of consensus in the field. Further, it seems possible to game the ranking systems through excessive self-citations or by researchers supporting each other in surveys. UNESCO has even questioned whether rankings "do more harm than good," noting that while "Rightly or wrongly, they are perceived as a measure of quality and so create intense competition between universities all over the world". Critics argue that rankings can divert universities' attention away from teaching and social responsibility towards the type of scientific research valued by indicators used for ranking exercises. There have also been concerns that by applying a limited set of criteria to world universities, and given the strong desire to feature in the top 200 universities, rankings actually encourage the homogenization of higher education institutions, making them less responsive and less relevant to their immediate contexts. The fact that rankings are also said to favour the advantage enjoyed by the 200 best-ranked institutions has important implications for equity. == Global rankings == Several organizations produce worldwide university rankings, including the following. The three longest established and most influential global rankings are those produced by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), Times Higher Education (THE) and Shanghai Ranking Consultancy (the Academic Ranking of World Universities; ARWU). All of these, along with other global rankings, primarily measure the research performance of universities rather than their teaching. They have been criticized for being "largely based on what can be measured rather than what is necessarily relevant and important to the university", and the validity of the data available globally has been questioned. As of 2021, across the three most popular global rankings, "the majority of the top-ten globally ranked institutions are located in southern England, California, the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut), and nearby Massachusetts." While some rankings attempt to measure teaching using metrics such as staff to student ratio, the Higher Education Policy Institute has pointed out that the metrics used are more closely related to research than teaching quality, e.g. "Staff to student ratios are an almost direct measure of research activity", and "The proportion of PhD students is also to a large extent an indication of research activity". Inside Higher Ed similarly states "these criteria do not actually measure teaching, and none even come close to assessing the quality of impact". Many rankings are also considered to contain biases towards the natural sciences and, due to the bibliometric sources used, towards publication in English-language journals. Some rankings, including ARWU, also fail to make any correction for the sizes of institutions, so a large institution is ranked considerably higher than a small institution with the same quality of research. Other compilers, such as Scimago and U.S. News & World Report, use a mix of size-dependent and size-independent metrics. Some compilers, notably QS, THE, and U.S. News, use reputational surveys. The validity of these has been criticized: "Most experts are highly critical of the reliability of simply asking a rather unrandom group of educators and others involved with the academic enterprise for their opinions"; "methodologically [international surveys of reputation] are flawed, effectively they only measure research performance and they skew the results in favor of a small number of institutions." However, despite the criticism, much attention is paid to global rankings, particularly ARWU, QS, and THE. Some countries, including Denmark and the Netherlands, use university rankings as part of points-based immigration programs, while others, such as Russia, automatically recognize degrees from higher-ranked universities. India's University Grants Commission requires foreign partners of Indian universities to be ranked in the top 500 of the THE or ARWU ranking, while Brazil's Science Without Borders program selected international partner institutions using the THE and QS rankings. === Major international rankings === ==== QS World University Rankings ==== The QS World University Rankings are a ranking of the world's top universities produced by Quacquarelli Symonds published annually since 2004. In 2024, they ranked 1500 universities, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, University of Oxford, Harvard University and University of Cambridge taking the top 5 spots. The QS rankings should not be confused with the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. From 2004 to 2009 the QS rankings were published in collaboration with Times Higher Education and were known as the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. In 2010 QS assumed sole publication of rankings produced with this methodology when Times Higher Education split from QS in order to create a new rankings methodology in partnership with Thomson Reuters. The QS rankings were previously published in the United States by U.S. News & World Report as the "World's Best Universities". However, in 2014, U.S. News & World Report launched their own international university ranking titled "Best Global Universities". The inaugural ranking was published in October 2014. In 2023, for the 20th edition of the QS World University Rankings, released on 28 June 2023, QS following an 18 months long consultation involving representatives of the global higher education sector, students and the QS Rankings Global Advisory Board (established in 2010), introduced its largest-ever methodological enhancement, introducing three new metrics: Sustainability, Employment Outcomes and International Research Network, each worth 5% of a university's possible score. The results draw on the analysis of 17.5m academic papers (bibliometric data provided by data from Scopus,) which informs the "Citation per Faculty" indicator and represent 20 percent of the overall score. The results also draw on the expert opinions of over 144,000 academic faculty and over 98,000 international employers. These two indicators are worth 30 percent and 15 percent of a university's possible score respectively. The QS rankings also incorporate faculty/student ratios (10 percent of the overall score) and international staff and student numbers (5 percent each of the overall score). The detailed methodology is available online. QS Asian University Rankings The QS World University Rankings expanded its portfolio in 2009 to incorporate the Asian University Rankings. This expansion was executed in collaboration with The Chosun Ilbo newspaper, based in South Korea. By 2023, the rankings had grown to feature 760 universities. The eligibility criteria for these rankings were anchored in the United Nations M49 Standard. These criteria update led to the inclusion of five Central Asian nations - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan - as well as Iran. For the first time in eight years, a Singaporean institution did not take the regional top spot, nor did Singapore occupy two of the top three positions. The city-state's hegemony at the top of the table was interrupted by the rise of China's premier institutions, particularly Peking University, the new regional leader, breaking the National University of Singapore’s four-year run as Asia's number one university. NUS fell to second place while China's Tsinghua University came third. Nanyang Technological University dropped to fifth place. China (Mainland) was the region's most represented location, with 128 listed universities, followed by India with 118 and Japan with 106. Although the Asian University Rankings share some core metrics with the QS World University Rankings, there are variations in the weightings. Additionally, the methodology for the Asian rankings integrates region-specific indicators. Notably, these include metrics such as the percentage of staff with PhDs and data on inbound and outbound exchange students. QS Latin American & Caribbean University Rankings The QS Latin American University & The Caribbean Rankings were published for the first time in 2011. The methodology was developed in consultation with experts from the region. Evaluating the region's institutions based on academic and employer recognition, research output, resources and internationalisation, the 2024 edition of the rankings lists 430 institutions across 25 locations. Universidade de São Paulo tops the table, usurping Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile which comes second while Brazil's Universidade Estadual de Campinas places third. Brazil is the most represented nation with 97 listed universities, followed by Mexico with 63 and Colombia with 61. QS Arab Region Universities Rankings The first-ever QS Arab Region University Rankings is released in 2014. Evaluating institutions based on global recognition, research prowess, teaching resources and internationalisation (methodology), the 2024 edition of the ranking is the largest ever, showcasing 223 institutions from 18 member countries of the Arab League. King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals topped the table, climbing from third place in the previous edition. King Saud University came second while Qatar University placed third. The previous year's leader, King Abdulaziz University (KAU), dropped to fifth, after spending four consecutive years in the top spot. Egypt was the most represented higher education system, with 36 featured universities, followed by Saudi Arabia with 34 and Iraq with 24. The top ten universities in the Arab world represent a diverse array of institutions spanning various countries. Among them are Qatar University in Doha, Qatar, and King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman, and the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Beirut, Lebanon are prominent fixtures in the region's educational landscape. American University of Sharjah in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and the University of Jordan in Amman, Jordan, are esteemed for their contributions to higher education and research in the Arab world. United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates, and King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, are also notable for their rigorous academic programs. In addition, Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, are recognized for their commitment to innovation and knowledge dissemination. Various methods of ranking universities, including QS University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings and Academic Ranking of World Universities, underwent analysis. Arab scholars recommended creating two new methodologies for World University Ranking and Arab University Ranking. They raised concerns by accusing biases against universities in the Arab region universities within existing rankings, and underscored the importance of recalibrating indicator weighting due to disregarded institutional disparities. QS Ranking by Subject The QS World University Rankings by Subject was first published in 2011, featuring 26 disciplines. The latest edition showcases over 1,500 universities and specialist higher education institutions across 55 different subjects, grouped into 5 faculty (broad subject) areas. ==== Times Higher Education World University Rankings ==== From 2004 to 2009 Times Higher Education (THE), a British publication, published the annual Times Higher Education–QS World University Rankings in association with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). THE published a table of the top 200 universities and QS ranked approximately 500 online, in book form, and via media partners. On 30 October 2009, THE broke with QS and joined Thomson Reuters to provide a new set of world university rankings, called Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The 2015/16 edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings rank the world's 800 best universities, while the 2016/17 installment will rank the world's top 980. On 3 June 2010, Times Higher Education revealed the methodology which they proposed to use when compiling the new world university rankings. The new methodology included 13 separate performance indicators, an increase from the six measures employed between 2004 and 2009. After further consultation the criteria were grouped under five broad overall indicators to produce the final ranking. THE published its first rankings using its new methodology on 16 September 2010, a month earlier than previous years. THE also