Do you search for leading universities to pursue your higher education in 2024? Are you interested to know where the top universities are located? Or have you ever reviewed a ranking for the world’s leading universities? If you want answers, read this content until the end.

According to 2024 QS World University Rankings, a portfolio of comparative university rankings compiled by global higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), European and North American universities dominate the tops, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) securing the top position for the twelfth consecutive years.

QS has published its 2024 World University Rankings, in which the European universities have secured half of the top positions in the top 10. In its 20th year, the QS annual assessment categorized the top 10 and 20 universities based on the analysis of 17.5 million academic papers and over 240,000 academic faculty, experts, and employers’ opinions worldwide.

In the 2024 ranking, European universities secured five out of the top 10 positions, while English-speaking universities have scored the upper rankings in categories like academic reputation, employer reputation, and faculty or student ratio.

The United States Cambridge-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has secured the top position with a perfect overall score of 100 for the 12th consecutive year.

The United Kingdom, University of Cambridge, is in the second position with 99.2 points, while its local competitor, the University of Oxford, secured third place with 98.9 points. Following these top three universities, Harvard University took the fourth position with 98.3 scores, and Stanford University ranked fifth with 98.1 points. Please review the list of 10 top universities according to the QS World University Rankings 2024.

 Top Global Universities:

No.	Name of the Institution	Location	Score
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Cambridge, United States	100
2	University of Cambridge	Cambridge, United Kingdom	99.2
3	University of Oxford	Oxford, United Kingdom	98.9
4	Harvard University	Cambridge, United States	98.3
5	Stanford University	Stanford, United States	98.1
6	Imperial College London	London, United Kingdom	97.8
7	ETH Zurich	Zürich, Switzerland	93.3
8	National University of Singapore (NUS)	Singapore, Singapore	92.7
9	University College London (UCL)	London, United Kingdom	92.4
10	University of California, Berkeley (UCB)	Berkeley, United States	90.4

List of European Top 10 Universities

The European top 10 universities for 2024 are as follows:

1. The University of Cambridge (99.2) was second worldwide
2. The University of Oxford (98.9), third worldwide
3. Imperial College of London (97.8), which took sixth place worldwide
4. ETH Zurich (93.9) 7th overall
5. University College of London (92.4), which was 9th in the world.
6. Taking sixth place on the European continent is the University of Edinburgh in the UK (86.1)
7. The Université PSL Paris, France (85.8)
8. The University of Manchester (82.2)
9. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland (80.4)
10. The Technical University of Munich, Germany (80)

Please review the chart below for the Top European Universities according to the QS University Rankings 2024:

No.	Name of the Institution	Location	Score
1	University of Cambridge	Cambridge, United Kingdom	99.2
2	University of Oxford	Oxford, United Kingdom	98.9
3	Imperial College London	London, United Kingdom	97.8
4	ETH Zurich	Zürich, Switzerland	93.3
5	University College London (UCL)	London, United Kingdom	92.4
6	The University of Edinburg	Edinburgh, United Kingdom	86.1
7	Université PSL	Paris, France	85.8
8	The University of Manchester	Manchester, United Kingdom	82.2
9	EPFL	Lausanne, Switzerland	80.4
10	Technical University of Munich	Munich, Germany	80
11	Institut Polytechnique de Paris	Palaiseau Cedex, France	79.5
12	King’s College London	London, United Kingdom	79.3
13	The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)	London, United Kingdom	76.9
14	Delft University of Technology	Delft, Netherlands	76.2
15	University of Amsterdam	Amsterdam, Netherlands	73.4
16	Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München	Munich, Germany	72.5
17	University of Bristol	Bristol, United Kingdom	72.4
18	Sorbonne University	Paris, France	71.7
19	KU Leuven	Leuven, Belgium	70.1
20	The University of Warwick	Coventry, United Kingdom	68.6

What Factors are Important for Ranking the Top Positions?

The overall score of the significant ranking is reached by considering nine crucial metrics as follows:

1. Academic reputation
2. Employer reputation
3. Citations per faculty
4. Faculty-student ratio
5. International faculty ratio
6. International students’ ratio
7. International research network
8. Employment outcome
9. Sustainability

According to Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the firm analyst behind the ranking, the new indicators that reflect the shifts in higher education over the past two decades include the growing importance of sustainability, employability, and research collaborations,

What Trends Do the Rankings Show?

Higher education has experienced important changes over the past two decades.

According to Dr. Andrew MacFarlane, QS Rankings Manager, one of the leading and first changes noticed [in the past decades] was the increasing focus on student employability.

He added, “Students are leaving [university] with higher debt than ever in a competitive global job market.”

MacFarlane said that as the QS University Ranking celebrates its 20th anniversary, one trend in which they take “immense pride in is the increasing inclusivity of our rankings, which illuminates the global distribution of academic excellence.”

Between 2018 and the 2024 edition of the QS, a considerable increase has been witnessed in the representation of Asian, Middle Eastern, Latin American, and African universities in the World University Ranking. In 2018, the regions reported 37% of the ranking; in 2024, the percentage has grown to 46%.

The EU Universities Excel in Internationalisation Metrics

European universities continue to excel in their global engagements, which is fundamental. MacFarlane says, “To break down the world’s challenges, you’re going to have to work across borders, solve challenges together and be more transparent. And Europe is leading the way on this”.

Some of the EU institutions that demonstrate their strength in international research collaboration prominently include the Université PSL Paris (Paris Sciences et Lettres University) – which took third place in the ‘international research network category,’ the Sorbonne (4th), KU Leuven and Ghent University in Belgium (6th and 8th respectively), and Université de Montpellier in France (9th).

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