Top 10 Best Universities 2024 In The World by Times Higher Education
Top 10 Best Universities In The World Today

Our top ten list is based on Times Higher Education rankings (October 2024 updated ). Times Higher Education ranks universities around the world using metrics from five categories: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry innovations, and international outlook.

Whereas many popular U.S.-based college rankings consider factors such as financial aid and social atmosphere, these global rankings focus on academic rigor.

Top 10 Most Prestigious Universities In The World Today

1. University of Oxford — Oxford, United Kingdom

Address: University Offices, Wellington Square, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX1 2JD, United Kingdom

10.9: Number of students per staff member

Number of Full-Time Equivalent Students: 21,750

International students account for 42% of all students.

The University of Oxford is the oldest English-speaking university and the world's second oldest surviving university. While the exact date of its establishment is unknown, there is evidence that teaching began as early as 1096.

The university, which is located in and around Oxford's medieval city center, has 44 colleges and halls, as well as over 100 libraries, making it the largest library system in the UK.

There are approximately 22,000 students in total, with slightly more than half being undergraduates and more than 40% being international, representing 140 countries.

Oxford, dubbed the "city of dreaming spires" by Victorian poet Matthew Arnold, has the youngest population of any city in England and Wales, with nearly a quarter of its residents being university students, giving the city a noticeable buzz.

Oxford has over 250,000 alumni, including more than 120 Olympic medalists, 26 Nobel Prize winners, seven poet laureates, and more than 30 modern world leaders (including Bill Clinton, Aung San Suu Kyi, Indira Gandhi, and 26 UK Prime Ministers).

READ MORE: Top 20 Most Prestigious Public Colleges 2024 by US News & World Report

2. Stanford University — Stanford, California, United States

Address: 450 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA

14,517 Full-Time Equivalent Students

International students account for 23% of the total.

Out-of-state Tuition and Fees: $53,529

Room and Board on campus costs $16,433.

Salary after ten years: $88,567

Stanford University is one of the most prestigious universities in the world, with one of the largest campuses in the United States.

It was founded in 1885 and opened six years later as a private co-educational and non-denominational institution.

Its location, less than an hour south of San Francisco, next to Palo Alto, puts it in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, and the university is known for its entrepreneurial spirit.

This entrepreneurialism has its origins in the postwar period, when the provost encouraged innovation, resulting in a self-sufficient industry that became Silicon Valley.

By 1970, the university had developed a linear accelerator and hosted a portion of the early network that would serve as the technical foundation for the internet.

The main campus covers 8,180 acres and is home to nearly all of the university's undergraduate students.

There are 700 major university buildings that house 40 departments across three academic schools and four professional schools, as well as 18 independent laboratories, centers, and institutes.

READ MORE: Top 20+ Most Useless University Degrees With Uncertain Future

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Address: 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02139-4307, USA

8.0: Number of students per faculty member

33%: International Student Percentage

Out-of-state Tuition and Fees: $53,790

Salary after ten years: $96,033.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private, independent research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

MIT was founded in 1861 with the goal of "furthering knowledge and preparing students in science, technology, and other fields of study that will best benefit the nation and the world today." Mens et Manus, which translates as "Mind and Hand," is its motto.

The university has 85 Nobel Laureates, 58 National Medal of Science recipients, 29 National Medal of Technology and Innovation recipients, and 45 MacArthur Fellows. Among its distinguished alumni is former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

MIT has been credited with the first chemical synthesis of penicillin, the development of radar, the discovery of quarks, and the invention of magnetic core memory, which enabled the development of digital computers.

Currently, MIT is divided into five schools: architecture and planning, engineering, humanities, arts and social sciences, management, and science.

4. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.

Address: Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States

International students make up 25% of the student body.

Number of Full-Time Equivalent Students: 20,050

Out-of-state Tuition and Fees: $51,925

Salary after ten years: $92,033.

Harvard University, founded in 1636, is the oldest university in the United States and one of the most prestigious in the world.

It was named after its first benefactor, John Harvard, who left the institution his library and half of his estate when he died in 1638.

More than 45 Nobel laureates, over 30 heads of state, and 48 Pulitzer Prize winners have connections to the private Ivy League institution. It has over 323,000 living alumni, with over 271,000 in the United States and nearly 52,000 in 201 other countries. The institution has conferred honorary degrees on thirteen US presidents, the most recent of which was given to John F. Kennedy in 1956.

Recent Nobel laureates include chemist Martin Karplus and economist Alvin Roth, while notable alumni include former US Vice President Al Gore, who won the Peace Prize in 2007, and poet Seamus Heaney, who taught at Harvard from 1981 to 1997.

Harvard University's 5,000-acre campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is home to 12 degree-granting schools, as well as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, two theaters, and five museums. It also houses the world's largest academic library, with 20.4 million volumes, 180,000 serial titles, 400 million manuscript items, 10 million photographs, 124 million archived web pages, and 5.4 terabytes of born-digital archives and manuscripts.

5. Cambridge University — Cambridge, United Kingdom

Top 10 Best Universities In The World Today
Cambridge University - Most Prestigious Universities In The World

Address: The Old Schools, Trinity Lane, CB2 1TN, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom

International students account for 38% of the total.

Number of Full-Time Equivalent Students: 20,565

Cambridge has over 18,000 students from various cultures and parts of the world. Over 120 countries are represented among its nearly 4,000 international students. Furthermore, the university's International Summer Schools provide 150 courses to students from over 50 countries.

The university is divided into 31 autonomous colleges, each of which provides students with small group teaching sessions known as college supervisions.

Six schools are distributed among the university's colleges, housing approximately 150 faculties and other institutions. Arts and Humanities, Biological Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and Technology are the six schools.

The campus is in the heart of Cambridge, with many listed buildings and many of the older colleges located on or near the river Cam.

In total, 92 university affiliates have received Nobel Prizes in various categories.

The endowment of the university is nearly £6 billion.

Top 20 Best Universities In The US 2023/2024 By US News and QS Rankings Top 20 Best Universities In The US 2023/2024 By US News and QS Rankings

US is home to a large number of top universities in the world. KnowInsiders have summarized a list of top 20 best universities in the ...

6. Princeton University - New Jersey, USA

Address: Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, United States of America

International students account for 23% of the total.

7,753 Full-Time Equivalent Students

Out-of-state Tuition and Fees: $52,800

Salary after ten years: $77,700

The Ivy League institution, known for its commitment to teaching, provides residential housing to all of its undergraduates across all four years of study, with 98% of undergraduates living on campus.

It has a small student body, with fewer than 10,000 students in total, and international students make up 12% of undergraduates.

Princeton is also one of the world's leading research universities, with ties to more than 40 Nobel laureates, 17 National Medal of Science winners, and five National Humanities Medal recipients.

Princeton, which is consistently ranked among the top ten universities in the world, is known for the park-like beauty of its campus as well as some of its landmark buildings designed by some of America's most well-known architects. For example, its Frank Gehry-designed Lewis Library houses many of the university's science collections. Its McCarter Theatre Center has won a Tony Award for best regional theatre in the United States.

The Princeton campus is spread across 500 acres and contains approximately 180 buildings, including 10 libraries with approximately 14 million holdings. It is well-liked by visitors, with approximately 800,000 people visiting its open campus each year, generating approximately $2 billion in revenue.

7. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA

Top 10 Best Universities In The World Today
California Institute of Technology

Address: 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

33%: International Student Percentage

The number of FTE students is 2,240.

Out-of-state Tuition and Fees: $54,600

Salary after ten years: $79,300

Caltech has six academic divisions, with a strong emphasis on teaching and research in science and technology. The university has a competitive admissions process that ensures only the most gifted students are admitted.

Caltech has a high research output and many high-quality facilities on campus and around the world. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Caltech Seismological Laboratory, and the International Observatory Network are all part of this.

Caltech alumni and faculty have received 39 Nobel Prizes, one Fields Medal, six Turing Awards, and 71 US National Medals of Science or Technology. Four US Air Force chief scientists have also attended the institution.

The campus is in Pasadena, California, about 11 kilometers from downtown Los Angeles. The school's mascot is a beaver, in honor of nature's engineer.

8. Imperial College London — London, United Kingdom

Address: South Kensington Road, SW7 2AZ, Kensington, London, United Kingdom

Number of Full-Time Equivalent Students: 20,275

61%: International Student Percentage

Imperial College London, a science-based institution in the heart of the capital, is regarded as one of the leading institutions in the United Kingdom.

The college has approximately 15,000 students and 8,000 employees and focuses on four major areas: science, engineering, medicine, and business.

The institution's origins can be traced back to Prince Albert's vision of making London's South Kensington a center for education, with colleges coexisting with the nearby Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Science Museum.

Imperial was founded in 1907 by the merger of the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines, and the City and Guilds College.

The institution has 14 Nobel Prize winners, including penicillin discoverer Sir Alexander Fleming.

Among its notable alumni is science fiction author H.G. Wells, Queen guitarist Brian May, former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, former UK chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, and former Singapore Airlines CEO Chew Choon Seng are among those honored.

Scientia imperii decus et tutamen, which translates as "Scientific knowledge, the crowning glory and the safeguard of the empire," is the college's motto.

The Queen's Tower, a remnant of the Imperial Institute, was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.

9.The University of California, Berkeley — Berkeley, California, USA

Address: 110 Sproul Hall, Berkeley, California 94704, USA

22%: International Student Percentage

Out-of-state Tuition and Fees: $44,007

Salary after ten years: $62,433.

The university is located in the San Francisco Bay Area and has approximately 27,000 undergraduate and 10,000 postgraduate students.

Berkeley faculty members have received 19 Nobel Prizes, the majority of which have been awarded in physics, chemistry, and economics. Recent winners include Saul Perlmutter, who won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for leading a team that discovered the universe's accelerating expansion, implying the existence of a type of dark energy that accounts for 75% of the universe, and George Akerlof, who won the 2001 Prize in Economics for demonstrating how markets fail when buyers and sellers have different information.

Novelist and journalist Jack London, Oscar-winning actor Gregory Peck, former Prime Minister and President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, author Joan Didion, and Women's World Cup-winning US footballer Alex Morgan are among the notable alumni.

Berkeley has a long history of political activism. During the 1960s and 1970s, the campus was a hotbed of anti-Vietnam War student protests.

Top 20 Best Universities For Social Mobility & Disadvantaged Students in the U.S Top 20 Best Universities For Social Mobility & Disadvantaged Students in the U.S

The top 20 universities in America (2024) are most successful in promoting social mobility by enrolling and graduating a large proportion of disadvantaged students who ...

10. Yale University - New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Address: 06520 New Haven, Connecticut, United States

The number of full-time equivalent students is 11,924.

Out-of-state Tuition and Fees: $55,500

Salary after ten years: $80,200

Top 10 Best Universities In The World Today
Yale University

Yale University is the third-oldest higher education institution in the United States and a private Ivy League research university.

Yale University was founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School in Saybrook, Connecticut, and moved to New Haven 15 years later.

It was renamed Yale College in 1718 after Welsh benefactor Elihu Yale, and it was the first university in the United States to award a PhD in 1861.

Yale's main campus spans 260 acres of New Haven and includes buildings dating back to the mid-nineteenth century.

The university is divided into 14 schools, and students follow a liberal arts curriculum that includes humanities and arts, sciences, and social sciences before deciding on a departmental major. Students are also taught writing skills, quantitative reasoning, and foreign languages.

In an unusual move for the United States, Yale students are housed in residential colleges modeled after the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. There are 12 historic colleges, and work on two more began in 2014.

One in every five students is international, and more than half of all undergraduates receive university scholarships or grants.

The complete list of the world's best universities 2024 by Times Higher Education

1.Oxford University — Oxford, United Kingdom

2.Stanford University is located in Stanford, California, in the United States.

3.Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA — Massachusetts Institute of Technology

4.Harvard University is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.

5.Cambridge University — Cambridge, United Kingdom

6.Princeton University is located in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

7.California Institute of Technology (Caltech) — Pasadena, California, USA

8.Imperial College London is located in London, England.

9.Berkeley, California, USA — University of California, Berkeley

10.Yale University is located in New Haven, Connecticut, in the United States.

11.Zurich, Switzerland ETH Zurich

12.Tsinghua University is located in Beijing, China.

13.The University of Chicago — Chicago, Illinois

14.Peking University is located in Beijing, China.

15.Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA

16.University of Pennsylvania — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

17.Columbia University is located in New York, New York.

18.University of California, Los Angeles — Los Angeles, California, U.S.

19.Singapore: National University of Singapore

20.Cornell University is located in Ithaca, New York.

Conclusion

Studying Abroad has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry, providing massive amounts of employment, running economies, and, most importantly, fostering a healthy exchange of knowledge. Today, countries are bending entry laws, implementing student-friendly policies, and, most importantly, allowing international students a fair chance of finding work through their post-study visa has only aided the cause.

Candidates who wish to study abroad are only concerned with themselves. Today, we bring the best universities in the world to our students for higher education. You can visit each of the best universities listed above to learn more about the university, the courses available, the duration of the course, admission and eligibility requirements, and the most recent living and tuition fee structure.

Interesting Facts 40 Women Colleges in the U.S Today Interesting Facts 40 Women Colleges in the U.S Today

There are just over 40 women colleges in the U.S. today. Check out Top 10 best women colleges and the full list of women's current ...

Top 10+ Cheapest Universities in Australia for International Students Top 10+ Cheapest Universities in Australia for International Students

Colleges and universities in Australia are popular study destinations for students from all over the world. However, high tuition and other costs pose significant challenges. ...

Top 10 Most Prestigious Universities in Australia by QS World Rankings 2024 Top 10 Most Prestigious Universities in Australia by QS World Rankings 2024

Explore the most prestigious universities in Australia based on the QS World University Rankings 2024.