Unpacking the QS World University Rankings 2025: What the Numbers Really Mean

TL;DR

The article offers a comprehensive overview of the QS World University Rankings for 2025, detailing the methodology, top performers, and key insights. It explains the importance of QS rankings, recognized globally as one of the most authoritative sources for evaluating universities. The article highlights the performance of leading institutions like MIT, Imperial College London, and Oxford, and discusses their shifts in rank. It delves into the criteria QS uses to assess universities, including academic reputation, research impact, and internationalization, while also addressing the controversies and challenges of accurately ranking thousands of institutions. Additionally, the article explores the background of QS founder Nunzio Quacquarelli and how his personal experiences shaped the company’s mission. The piece concludes by acknowledging the limitations and strengths of QS rankings, particularly from the perspective of prospective students and academic institutions.

Introduction to QS World University Rankings
 

The QS World University Rankings for 2025 are out. If you have never heard of QS, it stands for Quacquarelli Symonds, which is a higher education analyst and a for-profit services provider headquartered in London with offices in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It has become the most cited global rankings worldwide. The QS ranking receives approval from the International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) and is viewed as one of the three most widely read university rankings in the world, along with the Academic Ranking of World Universities and Times Higher Education World University Rankings. 

The QS rankings provide overall evaluation of 6482 universities worldwide and specific evaluations for university departments teaching/researching 55 subjects.

Top Performers in 2025: A Snapshot

To quickly satisfy your curiosity, here’s the latest top 25.

See the complete list for 2025 

QS has also released a ranking of specialised master’s programs in business. MIT ranked first for its program in supply chain management and second for its program in business analytics. 

Behind the Rankings: Criteria and Methodology

The Quacquarelli Symonds’s website explains the criteria that are used to assign ranks. The basic categories are only four: 

• Learning/teaching environment, 
• Research reputation 
• Research impact 
• Internationalisation 

The categories are further broken down into indicators: 

Academic Reputation: 

Academic reputation index carries the highest weightage in the scale. Asks the question ‘Which universities are performing world-class research? The question is not only about the quality of research, but also about the ability to communicate research and make an impact.

Citations per Faculty: 

This too is a major index. It shows the relative intensity and volume of research being done at an institution. QS takes into account the size of the institution. 

Faculty Student Ratio:

Faculty student ratio is important because the more academic staff resources (teaching, supervision, curriculum development, and pastoral support) available to students, the better the department. 

Employment Outcomes:

Obviously, this has to be ranked. What could be more important to a student than the chance of finding a job after graduation. It’s why students enrol into a university in the first place. This index shows two things: the institution’s ability to place their graduates, and the ability to turn out future leaders who will have an impact on their respective fields. This also reflects what employers think of the institution. 

International Faculty Ratio: 

A high ratio of international faculty vis a vis overall staff, indicates that the institution has research and teaching diversity and collaboration and is good enough to attract overseas staff. 

Who is behind QS? 

• The company was founded by Nunzio Quacquarelli. A look at his background tells us why he was a “natural” for this kind of business. 
• His father immigrated to Britain in the ‘50s; he was a man with little education but ready to do any job. Eventually, he was able to start a little Italian restaurant. Nunzio was born in the UK. The kid had brains; he was accepted to prestigious Cambridge University. Paying for Cambridge was difficult but the family managed it. Quacquarelli graduated with a degree in economics and then decided he wanted to study MBA in the US. This meant more student debt. 
• This was back in the 80’s when very little information was available to help international students figure out which universities they should apply to. Quacquarelli did his research, applied to Wharton Business School in Pennsylvania, USA, and was accepted. He knew that he wanted to start his own business and at Wharton he realised that thousands of international students like himself constituted a huge market for information. Here was the business that he was looking for – and a way to help students similar to himself realise their educational and career dreams. 
• In the 30 years of its existence the company has rapidly expanded. Now works with more than 2,000 of the world’s leading higher education institutions and more than 12,000 employers, spanning 50 countries. Their product is higher education services for students and other clients, covering each academic stage.

Questions about its methodology 

• QS prides itself on evaluations that are up-to-date, accurate, unbiased and genuinely helpful to both students and educational institutions. Students turn to these rankings when they are trying to figure out exactly where to apply and what to study. The rankings provide an easy way to compare institutions and make a shortlist and from there the student moves to more detailed information about courses, fees, etc. 
• The company also acknowledges the questions raised over its methodology. As QS sees it, “The big question is, what percentage of the world’s universities are covered by the ranking, and to play Devil’s Advocate, with what degree of confidence can we declare those to be the correct institutions to include?” 
• The article cited goes on to say that even QS cannot state with certainty the exact worldwide number of institutions of higher learning. In fact, no definitive list exists. It cites a UNESCO event in Paris in 2011, where this question was raised and a conservative estimate of 20,000 was made. But then the writer goes on to say, “The reality is that, were it possible to determine the exact global number of higher education institutions, it would most likely be in excess of 40,000…. We can essentially say, with 100 percent confidence, that there are, at least, 26,000 higher education institutions in the world.” 
• Sending out teams of evaluators to 26,000 institutions all over the world would be a very tall order and QS does not do it. So, if QS publishes a list of 1000 institutions, ranked in order of merit, how can it be sure that those 1000 are the top 1000? 
• At present, the company surveys 6482 institutions and they claim to process well over 100,000 survey responses. The methodology allows respondents to list institutions they can’t find and QS reviews these mentions to evolve the list. This is an annual process that has been going on for 14 years which means that universities which deserve to be ranked are included in the process and the list gets longer every year. 
• QS World University Rankings are not an opt-in ranking and once an institution is in the list on merit, it stays in. Statistically speaking, QS figures that its error rate for the top 500 cannot be greater than 5 percent … and it’s even lower for the top 200: just 3 percent error margin. 

From a student’s point of view, the criteria for evaluating a university department will change depending on whether the student is at undergraduate or postgraduate level. For a graduate program, the research published by a department is crucial. For a graduate student the best department is the one that has the most influential publications or the largest numbers of publications in their specific field. 

The higher up the educational ladder you go, the more important this becomes. Super important for PhD students; not so much for MA students and not too relevant for BA students. For undergraduate students, the thing to look at is the overall reputation of the university and as for particular departments, if the courses/faculty offered provide a solid grounding and a good balance of theory and practical knowledge, that serves the purpose.