If you are currently looking for a good university in which to enroll, then you will be happy to hear that QS published it annual university index. This year’s ‘QS World University Ranking’ is again dominated by higher education institutes in the UK and the US. In addition, Asian universities managed to impress in fields like engineering, science and technology. In comparison, emerging economies showed a less stable overall performance on the list. Also, even though not many universities from the Middle East and Africa found a place on the ranking, their number was higher than it was in previous years.
The index was based on evaluations of nearly 3,000 universities from all over the world. It also used responses from 70,000 experts in the academic sphere, as well as from recruiters of graduates.
QS has divided the raking in 30 different disciplines for each of which there is a separate list of top universities. The top performers in all of these categories are institutes located in either in the US or in the UK. They occupy over 66% of all the universities included in the ranking.
According to the list, Harvard is the best university in 2013. The institute managed to take the first position in ten categories. Second is yet another US university – the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. MIT received the highest score in 7 out of the 30 disciplines. The University of California Berkley, shares the third place with UK’s Oxford. Both of these institutes took the lead in four categories.
Employers also had their say. QS gave them the opportunity to rank universities according to their graduates. The majority of job providers believe that Cambridge graduates are the best in the world. Right after them are the students who have graduates Oxford and Harvard. Highly appreciated are also graduates from LSE ( the London School of Economics), University of Tokyo, as well as those from the University of California, Davis.
Universities in the Middle East and Africa Region
Representatives from Africa and the Middle East were very few. They amounted to barely 22 universities. Nevertheless, that is an improvement compared to previous year. For instance, two years ago, they amounted to only 16.
Despite that, the top universities in the region are located in only eight countries. They include Egypt, South Africa, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. As it can be seen, the majority of them are in the Middle East.
UAE was represented by the American University of Sharjah. The institute was amount the world’s top 200 in the discipline English Language and Literature.
Asian Universities
Universities in Asia did really good on the ranking. More particularly, they performed best in disciplines connected with science, technology and engineering. For instance, nearly half of the top 20 high achievers in the category civil engineering are located in Asia. In addition, young universities on the continent were among fastest developing ones.
BRIC Nations
Unlike higher education institutes in Asia, those located in the key countries with emerging economies show a performance that is less stable. India’s universities did not make it among the 200 best in a total of 11 disciplines. The scores of Russian institutes are even more discouraging. They managed to show up in barely eight categories.
This negative performance of India and Russia is somewhat balanced by China and Brazil. China has universities in the top 20 of 10 disciplines, while Brazil has 19 higher education institutes among the 200 best in the world.
Here is the list of the top universities in the world:
- Harvard
- Massachusetts Institute for Technology
- University of California Berkley
- Oxford
- Cambridge
- Imperial College London
- University of California Davis
- Stanford
- University of California, Los Angeles
- Princeton University
In general, changes seen on the global economic scene are affecting the international landscape of higher education. As a result, universities in Asia are starting to gain speed. In comparison, those in Europe, with the exception of the UK, are struggling to maintain their old-day glory.
