Find your university in the 2026 rankings

The performance of Asia’s top universities has stalled for the first time in 14 years in the 51�Թ� World University Rankings, while the US continues to decline even before the effects of the Trump administration’s attacks on higher education show up in the data.

While there are widespread strong results across many parts of Asia in the THE World University Rankings 2026 – which is topped by the UK’s University of Oxford for a record 10th consecutive year – the region’s leading universities are stagnant. Tsinghua University has stalled at 12th place for the third year in a row, Peking University has moved up just one place during that time and is now 13th for the second consecutive year, and the National University of Singapore (NUS) has also failed to improve on last year’s 17th position. The number of Chinese universities in the top 200 is also steady, at 13 universities for the third year in a row.

This stability is in marked contrast to the trajectory of Asia’s top universities in the decade leading up to the 2024 edition of the rankings, during which time Tsinghua moved up 35 places, Peking 28 places and NUS seven places. This year marks the first time since the 2012 edition that none of the three institutions has improved its rank.

However, below this elite tier, the familiar trend of East and South-east Asia’s rise continues.

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World University Rankings 2026: top 10

Who made the top 100? View the complete 2026 university rankings

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Hong Kong occupies a record six spots in the top 200 as a result of improvements in teaching reputation and its student-to-staff ratio, and all six of its institutions that were ranked both this year and last year have improved. South Korea rises significantly in all four research quality metrics and now has a record four institutions in the top 100. And the University of Tokyo climbs to 26th, its highest-ever position – although Japan’s representation at the top of the rankings has dipped slightly, with only 4 per cent of its providers improving their position on last year.

In contrast, 21 per cent of Chinese universities have moved up the table this year and the country’s average score increased by a whole point. It now has five universities in the top 40, up from three last year, and 35 in the top 500 – which is more than Australia. A total of 18 Chinese institutions achieved their best rank ever, more than any other nation.

Experts have debated when China might reach the top 10 in rankings – according to China scholar Denis Simon, the question has never been ���dzܱ�����Chinese universities enter this elite club but rather when – but the latest rankings results suggest that crossing this threshold is not straightforward.

Asia’s top 10 universities over time (only shows ranks in top 200)

Tsinghua and Peking universities already receive a perfect score of 100 for research income, research excellence (the amount of top research) and patents. However, the institutions receive much lower scores for international outlook than their UK and US counterparts in the global top 10, and are also weaker when it comes to typical research quality – both areas that are unlikely to change quickly.

Rajika Bhandari, principal of Rajika Bhandari Advisors, an international education research and strategy firm, said that Asia’s top universities had not hit a ceiling but were being constrained by national policy environments.

“To move higher, they need more autonomy, stronger support for fundamental research, and fewer restrictions on academic freedom,” she said. “Without that, there’s only so far rankings performance can go.”

The rankings results for the US in some ways present an opposite trend to that in China, with the top American universities mostly holding strong in the top 10, and in some cases improving, as those lower down the list continue their decline.

The US again occupies seven of the top 10 spots, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology leading the country in second place overall. Princeton University stands out though, having climbed to its highest position ever, joint third place, following big improvements in its teaching and research quality scores. It is the third year in a row that Princeton’s rank has improved – no mean feat for an institution in the typically stable top 10, where the score differences between universities are small.

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Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

However, it is the only US university to achieve its best-ever finish this year. The US has six more spots in the top 20 and a total of 35 in the top 100 – down from 38 last year. While it still dominates the top 500, with 102 ranked institutions, this is its lowest number on record. Its average score has dipped and 25 of its institutions – more than in any other country – have slumped to their lowest-ever positions, including the University of Chicago (15th), Columbia University (20th) and Duke University (28th).

And these results relate to the performance of US universities before the wave of unprecedented attacks on higher education from the Trump administration, with most of the rankings data relating to the 2023 academic year and only the academic reputation survey including data from this year.

Experts fear that as the effects of these attacks – lower levels of research funding and potentially fewer international students and scholars – start to appear in the data behind the rankings, these declines will only worsen and the performance of top US universities will suffer too.

Ming Cheng, professor of higher education at Sheffield Hallam University, said that while Donald Trump’s policies towards higher education might yet be thwarted by domestic resistance or shifting geopolitics, the downsides are clear.

“If the Trump administration continues to force the top universities to bow to its demands there will be brain drains in the US institutions, which can lead to sliding down in the rankings.”

Princeton’s success has come at the expense of Harvard University, which is already under immense pressure from the White House, and which slips to its lowest position for six years – joint fifth. Harvard is in fact only 0.1 point behind Princeton and Cambridge, but its rank will seem eye-catching nonetheless, particularly given that Trump has attempted to block hundreds of millions of dollars of its federal funding and bar it from enrolling international students.

Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at Oxford, said Harvard is likely to be affected by what is happening in a material sense – its research output and research funding position will both suffer as a result. Thus there is likely to be some slippage in the US’ position in global rankings.

Yet he does not think a predicted fall in Harvard’s rankings position – or that of any other elite university – which would only be visible after Trump’s presidential term, will change Trump’s attitude towards the sector.

“There’s no evidence that the Trump administration is concerned about global ranking position,” he said. 

“My sense is that the current administration projects power through hard power rather than soft power. Economic competition, military prowess, military capacity: those are the elements that are in play…not through higher education, educating international students and through the research system.”

But Marginson said the US – which has been regarded as the most prestigious research system in the world for decades – is unlikely to suffer hugely in the medium term.

“I don’t think all that accumulative historical reputation and centrality is just going to vanish…just because the Trump administration is attacking several leading research universities and perhaps casting a shadow over the whole sector.”

While Trump’s actions could accelerate the existing decline in the proportion of top universities in the US, the country will still be very strong and will not “slip under the rug” any time soon – particularly because the elite will still want to send their children there, he added.

Bhandari said that the overall reputation of top US institutions remains strong in terms of delivering a high-quality education.

However, she warned: “In the near future we could see such institutions start to slip in global rankings.

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“These institutions thrive on openness to talent, to funding, and to international collaboration. Challenges on those fronts would have real consequences, not just symbolically but in research output, student mobility and global reputation.”

Whether the stagnating performance of Asia’s top universities provides a cushion to the US, resulting in smaller declines than would otherwise occur, remains to be seen.

There are warning signs for the UK too, albeit to a lesser extent than in the US. Although Oxford retains its number one position and is joined in the top 10 by the University of Cambridge (joint third) and Imperial College London (eighth), there are more uneven results for the rest of the country.

Of the 105 UK institutions to have been ranked in the past two years, 27 per cent slid down the table and just 12 per cent improved.

Together, their average score rose by just a fraction of a point and 12 universities, including the London School of Economics and Political Science (52nd) and the University of Warwick (joint 122nd), fell to their lowest-ever positions. It is also the first time that the number of UK universities in the global top 500 has dipped below 50; it is now 49.

In the UK overall the gap is widening between the quality of top research, which continues to improve, and average research, which is declining. The country also has lower average scores for its proportion of international staff and student-staff ratio this year. These are all areas at risk of further decline as a result of the current funding crisis in UK higher education.

Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, acknowledged that her institution’s achievement “comes at a time of real strain for UK higher education”.

“Sustaining a dynamic and globally competitive sector requires renewed investment and support, so that universities can continue to drive discovery, opportunity and economic growth for future generations,” she said.

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Keith Birmingham/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images

Another issue that poses a threat to East Asia, the US and the UK is demographic decline. David Baker, professor of sociology, education and demography at Penn State University, said one of the drivers of research productivity, and probably research quality as well, was that more and more young people had gone into higher education.

But, as absolute numbers start to decline, universities will need to come up with solutions. In South Korea, institutions are already closing and consolidating schools and universities.

“Korea is really the canary in the coal mine…they are living our future in many respects,” said Baker.

“The demographic clock is ticking, and so it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens, particularly in Korea, Taiwan and Japan.”

Bhandari said that as youth populations shrink, especially in East Asia, universities could face narrower domestic pipelines for talent and research capacity.

“The real risk is if institutions don’t respond by expanding international recruitment and partnerships to stay globally competitive,” she added.

But, for Cheng, Asian governments have invested so heavily in higher education and innovation, in contrast to countries such as the UK, that their youth population decline will not affect their rankings in the short term.

And in the longer term, she remains confident that Asian universities will catch up to their US counterparts eventually.

This year marks the beginning of the dreaded “enrolment cliff” in the US – with scholars previously warning that it marks a bigger threat to the sector than anything from the Trump administration.

Until now, Baker said, the amount of money pumped into US higher education had been “phenomenal” but that could change with demographic trends.

“We’re starting to hit a total saturation of upper-middle-class people in higher education, and it’ll be interesting to see whether the kinds of money, both public and private, in the US are going to be able to continue.”

Do these trends therefore present an opportunity to universities outside the US, UK and established systems in Asia? Australia is showing signs of post-Covid recovery with its strongest performance in three years and Italy improves as a result of greater investment in research and better research productivity. But other powerhouses in Western Europe have suffered – including Germany, France and the Netherlands.

In contrast, Turkey and Poland have improved their average scores by more than 1 point. And rising research quality in Indonesia means that its average overall score improved by 2.3 points – the highest among countries with at least 20 institutions ranked.

Indonesia now has 35 universities in the rankings – a dramatic rise from just one a decade ago. The country’s highest-ranked university, the University of Indonesia, remains in the 801-1,000 band, but on average Indonesian institutions are improving fast.

Bhandari said the current “moment of great flux” in many higher education sectors was creating a contraction in some countries and expansion in others.

“The mobility of global academic and research talent is undergoing a shift – a reverse ‘brain drain’ from established centres of knowledge and science such as the US to other countries whose institutions have bolstered their research investments in recent years, including ones in Asia.

“These changes will likely be reflected in fluctuating rankings as well.”

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patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com