The World's Best Just Got Better

U.S. News has just published a midyear update of the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings. We've expanded the number of schools and countries on these lists. These rankings are based on data from the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, which were produced in association with QS Quacquarelli Symonds. One of the world's leading networks for careers and education, QS Quacquarelli Symonds has been publishing world rankings since 2004.

We now have the Top 400 Universities worldwide (increased from the Top 200), the Top 30 Asian Universities (to be expanded in the near future to the Top 60), the Top 60 European Universities (increased from the Top 30), the Top 20 Canadian Universities (unchanged), and the Top 20 Australian and New Zealand Universities (unchanged). The listing also includes the Top 100 global rankings in the fields of arts and humanities; engineering and IT; life sciences and biomedicine; natural sciences; and social sciences (each global subject area rankings was expanded from the Top 50).

Check out the methodology used to compute the World Best Colleges rankings. In addition, read more about the World's Best Colleges and why U.S. News is publishing these global rankings.

Why is U.S. News doing these global rankings? The U.S. News World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings enable our readers to understand more fully how well American institutions perform when compared with other institutions of higher learning around the world. The bottom line is that they perform very well: Ninety-three of the Top 400 Universities Worldwide, or nearly 25 percent, are in the United States.

How are the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings different from U.S. News's America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools rankings? First, none of the data used in the America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools rankings is used to compute any of the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings. Second, the methodology used to compute the World's Best Colleges and Universities rankings is different in many key areas from what we use in the America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools. The main difference is that the America's Best Colleges and America's Best Graduate Schools rankings rely heavily on student and school-specific data—such as scores on admission tests, graduation rates, retention rates, and financial resources—that are not part World's Best Colleges and Universities because such student and school-specific data can't be compared internationally.