QS World Rankings 2025: MIT retains 1st Position; Cambridge slips to Rank 5

Massachusetts Institute of Technology retains its top spot for the 13th year in a row in QS World Rankings 2025, Cambridge University drops down to the fifth rank and Imperial rises to the second place in the rankings. Check the top 10 list here.

QS World Rankings 2025: Quacquarelli Symonds has released QS World Rankings 2025. The top position is once again bagged by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the second position is taken by Imperial College London. Cambridge and Stanford University have dipped to 5th and 6th position respectively.

The 21st edition of the QS World University Rankings is the only ranking of its kind that emphasises employability and sustainability. It features over 1,500 institutions across 105 higher education systems.

The rankings are based on factors including employer reputation, citations per faculty, academic reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, proportion of international faculty, and proportion of international students.

“If one were to tell a story of the last two decades of global higher education, it would be of the US managing to remain pre-eminent – more of the world’s very best universities… amidst intensifying ambition from Asia’s great powers,” said Ben Sowter, QS senior VP.

“This year offers the starkest signal yet that there is no guarantee whatsoever that the US’ privileged position can withstand this ambition indefinitely,” he warned.

MIT was also ranked the world’s top university in 11 of the subject areas including - Chemical Engineering; Civil and Structural Engineering; Computer Science and Information Systems; Data Science and Artificial Intelligence; Electrical and Electronic Engineering; Linguistics; Materials Science; Mechanical, Aeronautical, and Manufacturing Engineering; Mathematics; Physics and Astronomy; and Statistics and Operational Research.

Top 10 universities as per QS World Rankings 2025

Following are the top 10 universities:

Rank	World Universities	Overall Score
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) US	100
2	Imperial College London	98.5
3	University of Oxford	96.9
4	Harvard University	96.8
5	University of Cambridge	96.7
6	Stanford University	96.1
7	ETH Zurich Switzerland	93.9
8	National University of Singapore (NUS)	93.7
9	UCL	91.6
10	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	90.9

 QS CEO Jessica Turner also talked about the Indian universities and said, “There is still no Indian institution among the global top 100. However, the noteworthy Indian – and Asian – improvements this year should still resonate with all those involved in US higher education, particularly in the context of American struggles,” as reported by the Pie News.

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