QS World University Rankings: USA

The Best US Universities for Excellence, Equity and Employability

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May 20, 2020, 05:00 ET

LONDON, May 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- QS Quacquarelli Symonds, publisher of the QS World University Rankings, released their inaugural ranking of America's top universities.

The QS World University Rankings: USA assesses how well universities are responding to the social, intellectual, and economic challenges of our time. Universities are ranked according to their research performance and career outcomes as well as a range of indicators evaluating each institution's social impact and attempts to foster equitability.

The methodology also evaluates universities based on the efforts they are making to support the 17 UN Sustainable Development goals.

QS CEO Nunzio Quacquarelli said, "QS surveyed 33,000+ prospective university students since the start of the pandemic. Though COVID-19's effects on higher education will resonate for years to come, our research reveals that students are not deterred from pursuing their education goals. It is our hope that this ranking will provide students with an insightful comparative tool, as they prepare for the next steps in their educational journey."

The QS World University Rankings: USA sees Harvard University named America's top university, placing ahead of Stanford University (2^nd) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (3^rd).

Harvard's leadership is founded on perfect scores for QS's Research and Employability indicators, which suggests that on average, Harvard produces America's most impactful research and most employable graduates. Five American colleges achieve perfect scores for QS's Learning Experience indicator:

Yale University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, and Brown University.

QS has named 300 institutions as the best four-year universities in the United States.

QS Research Director Ben Sowter said, "For thirty years, QS has served the global student community with the independent insights they need to make informed decisions. Our Employer Reputation indicator, a dataset based on the sentiments of over 44,000 hiring managers worldwide, allows potential applicants to assess US universities based on their ability to enhance their future careers, according to the most robust dataset available."

Sowter continued, "As the global graduate jobs market becomes even more competitive, our research suggests that students are placing a greater emphasis on this information. With the pandemic further disrupting the graduate employment market, we predict that concern about the relationship between education and employability will intensify."

QS World University Rankings: USA
1	Harvard University
2	Stanford University
3	MIT
4	University of California, Berkeley
5	Columbia University
6=	University of California, Los Angeles
6=	Yale University
8	University of Pennsylvania
9	Princeton University
10	Cornell University