-- Asia ascending, America ailing QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global higher education analysts, released the seventeenth edition of the QS World University Rankings (https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings ) - the world's most-consulted, most-covered source of comparative information about university performance.[1] 26 Asian universities place among the global top-100 – the highest number ever. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1099097/QS_Quacquarelli_Symonds_Logo.jpg -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology is named the world's best university for a record-breaking ninth consecutive year; -- The top three institutions remain American: MIT is followed by Stanford University (2nd) and Harvard University (3rd); -- Britain's top institution is the University of Oxford, which falls to fifth. Its compatriot competitor, the University of Cambridge, remains 7th; -- 112 of America's 153 ranked universities fall, with only 34 recording improvements. This is primarily due to collective relative decline in QS's measures of academic standing and research impact; -- Continental Europe's best university is ETH Zurich (6th no-change); -- Asia's top university is the National University of Singapore (11th); -- China's Tsinghua University reaches a new all-time high (15th); -- Latin America's leader is the Universidad de Buenos Aires (66th, up 8 places). Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (100th) becomes the first Mexican university ever to achieve a top-100 place; -- Universities in Russia and Malaysia continue to rise: Lomonosov Moscow State University (74th) and Universiti Malaya (59th) reach record highs. Ben Sowter, QS Director of Research, said: "The American higher education hegemony continues to diminish in the face of increasing competitiveness across the world: a competitiveness driven by strategic funding, internationalization efforts, and strong links between education and industry." QS World University Rankings 2021: Global Top 20 2021 2020 1 1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA 2 2 Stanford University USA 3 3 Harvard University USA 4 5 California Institute of Technology USA 5 4 University of Oxford UK 6 6 ETH Zurich Switzerland 7 7 University of Cambridge UK 8 9 Imperial College London UK 9 10 University of Chicago USA 10 8 University College London UK 11 11= National University of Singapore Singapore 12 13 Princeton University USA 13 11= Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore 14 18= Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) Switzerland 15 16 Tsinghua University China (Mainland) 16 15 University of Pennsylvania USA 17 17 Yale University USA 18 14 Cornell University USA 19 18= Columbia University USA 20 20 University of Edinburgh UK (C) QS Quacquarelli Symonds www.TopUniversities.com Methodological details can be found here (https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings/methodology ). To view the full rankings: www.TopUniversities.com [1] 'Most-consulted according to data from independent monitoring platforms, including Google Analytics, SimilarWeb, Meltwater, and Alexa. SOURCE QS Quacquarelli Symonds