Ranked: The Top 25 Universities Outside the U.S.

Ranked: Top 25 Universities Outside the U.S.

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Every year, major ranking agencies size up the planet’s best schools, and the results shape student flows, research funding, and even national bragging rights.

Today’s graphic showcases the 25 universities outside the U.S. that rank the highest across three respected publications in 2025.

The data for this visualization comes from latest lists created by Times Higher Education, the QS World University Rankings, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

The first 25 non-U.S. universities from each publication are listed and ranked here for ease of comparison. This rank may not correspond to their overall rank in each list.

Each publication weighs factors such as research output, teaching quality, and international outlook differently. When taken together however, they reveal a surprisingly consistent pecking order.

UK is the Next Best for Good Universities

The UK continues its centuries-long reign in academia.

Oxford is the highest ranked non-U.S. university for both Times Higher Education and ARWU and never falls below the global top three.

Rank	Times Higher Education	QS World	Academic Ranking World Universities
1	University of Oxford	Imperial College London	University of Cambridge
2	University of Cambridge	University of Oxford	University of Oxford
3	Imperial College London	University of Cambridge	Paris-Saclay University
4	ETH Zurich	ETH Zurich	UCL
5	Tsinghua University	National University of Singapore	ETH Zurich
6	Peking University	UCL	Tsinghua University
7	National University of Singapore	University of Hong Kong	Peking University
8	University of Toronto	Nanyang Technological University	Imperial College London
9	UCL	Peking University	University of Toronto
10	Technical University of Munich	Tsinghua University	Zhejiang University
11	The University of Tokyo	The University of Melbourne	The University of Tokyo
12	University of Edinburgh	The University of New South Wales	University of Copenhagen
13	Nanyang Technological University	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Université PSL
14	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Technical University of Munich	The University of Melbourne
15	University of Hong Kong	The University of Sydney	Shanghai Jiao Tong University
16	Fudan University	McGill University	The University of Edinburgh
17	King’s College London	Université PSL	Sorbonne University
18	LMU Munich	University of Toronto	University of Science and Technology of China
19	University of Melbourne	Fudan University	Karolinska Institute
20	University of British Columbia	King’s College London	University of Munich
21	Université PSL	Australian National University	Kyoto University
22	KU Leuven	The Chinese University of Hong Kong	Technical University of Munich
23	The Chinese University of Hong Kong	The University of Edinburgh	University of British Columbia
24	McGill University	The University of Manchester	Fudan University
25	Universität Heidelberg	Monash University	Heidelberg University

Note: Tied rankings: Fudan University and King’s College in Times Higher Education. Australian National University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong in QS World rankings. Technical University of Munich and the University of British Columbia in ARWU. Fudan University and Heidelberg University in ARWU.

Cambridge and Imperial College London follow close behind, giving the UK three of the five highest-scoring non-U.S. institutions.

Beyond prestige, hefty research budgets and a strong publishing culture keep these schools at the pinnacle of higher education.

Asian Universities Are Climbing the Ranks

China’s Tsinghua and Peking Universities are in the top 10 of all three lists, buoyed by massive R&D investment and government talent drives.

Singapore’s National University (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) also place highly for two of the three ranking systems. This reflects the city-state’s strategy of courting global faculty and forging industry links.

A Diversifying Elite in Higher Education

Europe retains depth; think ETH Zurich, Paris-Saclay, and LMU Munich.

Meanwhile, Australia and Canada secure spots through research and punch up relative to population size.

Together, these seven nations show that while America still dominates overall, world-class education is slowly becoming multipolar.

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• Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-top-25-universities-outside-the-u-s/