Investment in Higher Education Pays in QS World University Rankings 2016/2017

LONDON, Sept. 6, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

http://www.TopUniversities.com/rankings2016

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The thirteenth edition of the QS World University Rankings indicates that investment in higher education - either public or private - is a key differentiating factor between this year's risers (South Korea, Russia, the US, and Mainland China) and fallers (Most of Western and Southern Europe, South Africa, and Latin America).

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• MIT is the world's top university for the fifth consecutive year.
• Stanford, 2nd and Harvard, 3rd, follow.
• US institutions hold all top-three places for the first time since 2004/5.
• Western European institutions consistently suffer drops, particularly the UK and Germany. The University of Cambridge drops to fourth.
• Russia and South Korea rise significantly (16 top-500 universities compared to 13 last year).
• Mainland China progresses; Tsinghua (24th) achieves its highest-ever position.
• National University of Singapore (12th) leads Asian universities.
• Australia and Canada increase their representation in the top 200, with nine universities apiece, one more than last year.
• Latin America struggles, but sees a top-100 institution for the first time since 2006. Universidad de Buenos Aires (85th) occupies the second-highest rank ever achieved by a Latin American university.
• Universidade de Sao Paulo also occupies its highest-ever position (120th).

© QS Quacquarelli Symonds www.TopUniversities.com

74,651 academics and 37,781 employers contributed to the rankings through the QS global surveys, the largest of their kind. QS analyzed 10.3 million research papers and 66.3 million citations, indexed by Elsevier's Scopus database.

Ben Sowter, Head of Research, QS, said: "Institutions in countries providing high levels of targeted funding, whether from endowments or the public purse, rise. Conversely, Western European nations making or proposing cuts to public research spending lose ground to their US and Asian counterparts."

The rankings include 916 universities from 81 countries. Thirty-three countries feature in the Top 200. The US dominates, with 48 institutions, ahead of the UK (30), Netherlands (12), Germany (11), Canada, Australia (9), Japan (8), Mainland China (7), France, Sweden and Hong Kong (5).