It’s official: These are the very best universities you can go to across the world right now

You always hear about just how good the UK and Russell Group unis are, but how well do they stand up to the rest of the world?

Well, the QS World University Ranking for 2025 has just been released and it tells us the absolute best unis you can go to on the planet as of this year.

This year’s ranking looks at over 1,500 universities across 105 higher education systems. The US comes out on top though with the most universities featured (197 in total), followed by the UK with 90 and China with 71.

Even though eight Russell Group unis made it to the top 50 of the rankings, more than half of all British unis declined down the rankings this year.

But for the 13th year running, Massachusetts Institute of Technology maintains its title as the best uni in the world. Imperial College London jumps four places (beating Oxford and Cambridge) to take second and the University of Oxford and Harvard University are in third and fourth places. The University of Cambridge finishes off the top five.

These are the very best universities in the world right now, according to the QS World University Ranking 2025:

25. University of Toronto

24. Université PSL

23. Yale University

22. Princeton University

21. University of Chicago

20. Tsinghua University

19. The University of New South Wales

18. The University of Sydney

17. The University of Hong Kong

16. Cornell University

15. Nanyang Technological University

14. Peking University

13. University of Melbourne

12. University of California, Berkeley

11. University of Pennsylvania

10. California Institute of Technology

9. University College London

8. National University of Singapore

7. ETH Zurich

6. Stanford University

5. University of Cambridge

4. Harvard University

3. University of Oxford

2. Imperial College London

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• These eight Russell Group unis are some of the best in the world, according to new rankings

• Ranked: These are the Russell Group unis where students get the best value for money

• These are the Russell Group unis where students are least likely to finish their degrees

Featured image before edits via Canva.