Top 100 Universities in the World – QS 2021 Rankings

This page displays the historic QS World University Rankings for 2021, with the Top 100 universities in the world ranked that year. It provides a simple overview of which institutions excelled in terms of teaching, research, and reputation in 2021. It is also useful for looking back through time to see how the global higher education system has changed as the world moves forward. If you want to see the latest results, click on the latest QS Top 100 universities rankings (2026).

One of the most reliable rankings for top universities in the world is the QS World University Rankings®. For 2021 top university ranking, they evaluated over 5,500 universities from 80 locations across the world.

Historic QS 2021 Rankings – Top 100 Universities

Below is the list of the top 100 universities in the world for 2021, based on the QS World University Rankings.

Rank Name City Country
#1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge United States
#2 Stanford University Stanford United States
#3 Harvard University Cambridge United States
#4 California Institute of Technology Pasadena United States
#5 University of Oxford Oxford United Kingdom
#6 ETH Zurich Zürich Switzerland
#7 University of Cambridge Cambridge United Kingdom
#8 Imperial College London London United Kingdom
#9 University of Chicago Chicago United States
#10 University College London London United Kingdom
#11 National University of Singapore Singapore Singapore
#12 Princeton University Princeton United States
#13 Nanyang Technological University Singapore Singapore
#14 Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland
#15 Tsinghua University Beijing China
#16 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia United States
#17 Yale University New Haven United States
#18 Cornell University Ithaca United States
#19 Columbia University in New York New York City United States
#20 University of Edinburgh Edinburgh United Kingdom
#21 University of Michigan Ann Arbor United States
#22 University of Hong Kong Hong Kong Hong Kong
#23 Peking University Beijing China
#24 University of Tokyo Tokyo Japan
#25 Johns Hopkins University Baltimore United States
#25 University of Toronto Toronto Canada
#27 The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Hong Kong Hong Kong
#27 The University of Manchester Manchester United Kingdom
#29 Northwestern University Evanston United States
#30 University of California, Berkeley Berkeley United States
#31 Australian National University Canberra Australia
#31 Kings College London, University of London London United Kingdom
#31 McGill University Montreal Canada
#34 Fudan University Shanghai China
#35 New York University New York City United States
#36 University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles United States
#37 Seoul National University Seoul South Korea
#38 Kyoto University Kyoto Japan
#39 KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology Yuseong-gu South Korea
#40 The University of Sydney Sydney Australia
#41 The University of Melbourne Melbourne Australia
#42 Duke University Durham United States
#43 Chinese University of Hong Kong New Territories Hong Kong
#44 The University of New South Wales Kensington Australia
#45 University of British Columbia Vancouver Canada
#46 The University of Queensland St Lucia Australia
#47 Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai China
#48 City University of Hong Kong Kowloon Hong Kong
#49 London School of Economics and Political Science London United Kingdom
#50 Technical University of Munich München Germany
#51 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh United States
#52 Paris Sciences et Lettres University Paris France
#53 Zhejiang University Hangzhou China
#54 University of California, San Diego San Diego United States
#55 Monash University Clayton Australia
#56 Institute of Science Tokyo Meguro-ku Japan
#57 Delft University of Technology Delft Netherlands
#58 University of Bristol Bristol United Kingdom
#59 University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
#60 Brown University Providence United States
#61 Polytechnic Institute of Paris Palaiseau France
#61 University of Amsterdam Amsterdam Netherlands
#62 The University of Warwick Coventry United Kingdom
#63 Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich München Germany
#64 University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
#65 University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison United States
#66 National Taiwan University Taipei Taiwan
#66 University of Buenos Aires Buenos Aires Argentina
#69 Korea University Seoul South Korea
#71 The University of Texas at Austin Austin United States
#72 Osaka University Suita Japan
#72 University of Washington Seattle United States
#74 Moscow State University Moscow Russia
#75 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Kowloon Hong Kong
#76 University of Copenhagen Copenhagen Denmark
#77 Pohang University of Science and Technology Pohang South Korea
#77 University of Glasgow Glasgow United Kingdom
#79 Tohoku University Sendai Japan
#80 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta United States
#81 University of Auckland Auckland Central New Zealand
#82 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Champaign United States
#83 Sorbonne University Paris France
#84 KU Leuven Leuven Belgium
#85 Yonsei University Seoul South Korea
#86 Durham University Durham United Kingdom
#87 University of Birmingham Birmingham United Kingdom
#88 Sungkyunkwan University Seoul South Korea
#89 Rice University Houston United States
#90 University of Southampton Southampton United Kingdom
#91 University of Leeds Leeds United Kingdom
#92 The University of Western Australia Crawley Australia
#93 The University of Sheffield Sheffield United Kingdom
#93 University of Science and Technology of China Hefei China
#95 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill United States
#96 University of St Andrews St Andrews United Kingdom
#97 Lund University Lund Sweden
#98 KTH Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm Sweden
#99 The University of Nottingham Nottingham United Kingdom
#100 National Autonomous University of Mexico Mexico City Mexico
#101 Pennsylvania State University University Park United States

Explore Other Years

Want to see how the rankings have changed over time? Use the following dropdown to browse the Top universities from other years and track global trends.

Top Countries in 2021

The QS 2021 results also highlight the countries that had the most top-ranked universities. Here are the top 10 countries with the highest number of institutions ranked in 2021.