U.S. dominates global university rankings

Seven U.S. universities — with two tied for 10th place — made the top 10 in a new global ranking of universities.

Oxford University in the United Kingdom comes in at Number 1, but American schools dominate the list, with three of the top five and 63 of the top 200 world-class universities. (The two schools at the top of the list have switched places since last year, and the University of California, Berkeley, moved up from the 13th position to tie Chicago at 10th.)

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016–17 ranks the best universities in the world, rating them on teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The list includes 980 institutions of higher learning from 79 countries, representing an elite 5 percent of the world’s universities.

Several top U.S. universities that focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are among the top ranks. But with the rankings formula now including publication of books and book chapters as “research outputs” in addition to articles, schools focusing on arts and humanities research are better represented on the list.