A new ranking of the world's top universities has found that the U.S. and U.K. remain the top destinations for students across the globe.
The top 10 spots in the Times Higher Education 2019 World University Rankings were dominated by universities in both of those nations this year, many of them big-name institutions that have a long history of producing graduates who have gone on to be prominent names among the rich, famous and powerful.
Times Higher Education, a weekly magazine based in London, said that its rankings are based on the following core university missions: teaching (the learning environment); research (volume, income and reputation); citations (research influence); international outlook (staff, students and research); and industry income (knowledge transfer).
"We use 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments," the publication said.
Teaching and research, particularly scholar citations, play a prominent role in the rankings.. For example, universities can be excluded from the rankings if they do not teach undergraduates or if their research output amounted to fewer than 1,000 relevant publications between 2013 and 2017 (with a minimum of 150 a year). Universities can also be excluded if 80 per cent or more of their research output is exclusively in one subject area.
The following universities, in ascending order, were deemed the top universities in the world for 2019 by Times Higher Education:
10. University of Chicago
Students: 13,562
Students Per Staff: 6.1
International Students: 25%
Female/Male Ratio: 44/56
"The university manages Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, has direct oversight of the Marine Biological Laboratory, and is a founding partner of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization," the report said.
9. Imperial College London
Students: 16,425
Students Per Staff: 11.7
International Students: 56%
Female/Male Ratio: 38/62
"Famous alumni include science fiction author H.G. Wells, Queen guitarist Brian May, former prime minister of India Rajiv Gandhi, former UK chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson, and former chief executive of Singapore Airlines Chew Choon Seng. The college’s motto is Scientia imperii decus et tutamen, which translates as “Scientific knowledge, the crowning glory and the safeguard of the empire,” the report said.
8. Yale University
Students: 12,318
Students Per Staff: 5.2
International Students: 20%
Female/Male Ratio: 50/50
"Four Yale graduates signed the American Declaration of Independence, and the university has educated five US presidents: William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Twenty Yale alumni have won Nobel prizes, including economist Paul Krugman, while 32 have won the Pulitzer Prize," the report said.
7. Princeton University
Students: 7,996
Students Per Staff: 8.2
International Students: 24%
Female/Male Ratio: 45/55
"Notable alumni who have won a Nobel prize include the physicists Richard Feynman and Robert Hofstadter and chemists Richard Smalley and Edwin McMillan. Princeton has also educated two U.S. presidents, James Madison and Woodrow Wilson, who was also the university’s president prior to entering the White House. Other distinguished graduates include Michelle Obama, actors Jimmy Stewart and Brooke Shields, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad," the report said.
6. Harvard University
Students: 20,595
Students Per Staff: 9.1
International Students: 26%
Female/Male Ratio: 48/52
"Faculty members who have been awarded a Nobel prize in recent years include chemist Martin Karplus and economist Alvin Roth, while notable alumni who were given the honour include former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, who won the Peace Prize in 2007, and poet Seamus Heaney, who was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997," the report said.
5. California Institute of Technology
Students: 2,255
Students Per Staff: 6.5
International Students: 29%
Female/Male Ratio: 33/67
"The alumni and faculty of Caltech have been awarded 35 Nobel Prizes, one Fields Medal, six Turing Awards and 71 United States National Medal of Science or Technology. Four chief scientists of the US Air Force have also attended the institution," the report said.
4. Massachusetts Institute Of Technology
Students: 11,231
Students Per Staff: 8.7
International Students: 34%
Female/Male Ratio: 38/62
"Scientific discoveries and technological advances accredited to MIT include the first chemical synthesis of penicillin, the development of radar, the discovery of quarks, and the invention of magnetic core memory, which enabled the development of digital computers," the report said.
3. Stanford University
Students: 15,878
Students Per Staff: 7.4
International Students: 23%
Female/Male Ratio: 43/57
"Stanford counts 19 Nobel laureates within its community today and numerous famous alumni associated with the university from the worlds of art, social sciences, business, politics, humanities, media, sports and technology. The 31st president of the US, Herbert Hoover, was part of the first class at Stanford, and received a degree in geology in 1895. The alumni includes 17 astronauts," the report said.
2. University of Cambridge
Students: 18,749
Students Per Staff: 10.9
International Students: 37%
Female/Male Ratio: 46/54
"The university is split into 31 autonomous colleges where students receive small group teaching sessions known as college supervisions. ... [It is also] home to over 100 libraries, which, between them, hold more than 15 million books in total," the report said.
1. University of Oxford
Students: 20,298
Students Per Staff: 11.0
International Students: 40%
Female/Male Ratio: 46/54
"Oxford has an alumni network of over 250,000 individuals, including more than 120 Olympic medallists, 26 Nobel Prize winners, seven poets laureate, and over 30 modern world leaders (Bill Clinton, Aung San Suu Kyi, Indira Ghandi and 26 U.K. Prime Ministers, among them)," the report said.
The full report can be viewed here.