Where In The World Are The Top Universities?

Visual Capitalist's Pallavi Rao breaks down which countries host the most top 100 universities in the world, as per the World University Rankings 2024, sourced from Times Higher Education.

The ranking measures 1,906 universities across 108 countries on 18 performance indicators across broad pillars like teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

The U.S. Dominates in Higher Education

Not only does the U.S. have the most top 100 universities (36), it is also the most represented country (169 universities) in the entire ranking catalog of nearly 2,000 schools.

Adding the U.S. number to that of Canada’s (3) gives a regional total for North America (39) that compares similarly to Europe’s (36) regional total.

When looking at the top 10 specifically, the U.S. (7), and UK (3) split the pot for the very top of the ranking, which contains the world’s best universities.

Oxford University ranks first overall while Stanford University (#2) is first for teaching, and MIT (#3) is first in research quality.

Looking at top-ranking schools on a per capita basis, Singapore boasts two top 100 universities while having just over 5.5 million people. Switzerland, with nearly 9 million people, has three of the world’s best.

Notably South America and Africa do not host a single top 100 university, at least according to this ranking framework and the criteria within.

If you liked this article check out How Hard Is It to Get Into an Ivy League School which details the admission rates and median SAT scores required to be accepted.