Outperforming Cambridge, Oxford To Harvard, MIT Becomes The World's Best Universities

Air photos of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) orangutan campus area. (Wikimedia Commons/DrKenneth)

JAKARTA - European and North American universities dominate the top 10 of the list of best universities according to QS World Rankings 2024, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Massachusetts, the United States again topped the list for the 12th time in a row.

The annual assessment, which has entered its 20th year, refers to the analysis of 17.5 million academy papers, the expert opinion of more than 240,000 academic lecturers and employers from around the world.

Five of the top 10 positions in the world's best universities this time are from Europe. While one university from Southeast Asia is entrenched in ninth position, Asia's only representative in the top 10.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, United States, secured the top position with a perfect overall score of 100 for 12 consecutive years.

Cambridge University in England followed suit with 99.2 points. While the University of Oxford is in third place with 98.9 points.

Completing the top five list, Harvard University ranks fourth with a score of 98.3 and Stanford University in fifth place with 98.1 points.

The assessment process for conducting this ranking is based on nine things, including an academic reputation, employer's reputation, student ratios, quotes per faculty, international faculty ratios, international student ratios, and for the first time this year an international research network, employment and sustainability results were also assessed.

"These new indicators reflect the shift in higher education that has occurred over the past two decades, such as the increasing importance of sustainability, workworthiness, and research collaboration," said Quacquarelli Symonds, the analytic firm conducting the rating., reported Euronews 20 August.

Furthermore, it is said, higher education has undergone significant changes over the past two decades.

"One of the first changes we have noticed (in the last few decades] is the increasing focus on the feasibility of students," said Dr. Andrew MacFarlane, QS Ranking Manager, adding this directed them to strengthen their workworthiness focus.

Entering the 20th year of ranking, the inclusiveness of universities from all over the world continues to grow. Between 2018 and 2024, there was a sizeable increase in the representation of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa universities in the World University of Education.

One country in the spotlight is China. China, in particular, is experiencing a significant rating increase, driven by research efforts, said MacFarlane.

"They are the largest research producers in the world, but there is also more research that has been widely cited," he told Euronews, meaning the quality of research conducted in China has actually increased them in that ranking.

Meanwhile, the United States and Britain, which are traditionally well-performing countries, experienced a slight decline in rankings, but that doesn't mean their rankings are getting worse.

According to MacFarlane, this is also an indicator that other educational institutions around the world are improving and cutting inequalities with other universities.