global ranking news
3 Texas universities declared best in the world in new report
Three innovative Texas universities are soaring toward the top of the class worldwide. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) has ranked the University of Texas at Austin, UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and Texas A&M College Station among the top 100 on its prestigious Global 2000 list for 2026.
Each year, CWUR grades more than 21,000 universities around the world based on four factors without relying on surveys and university data submissions: education (25 percent), employability (25 percent), faculty (10 percent), and research (40 percent). For the 2026 edition, 81 million outcome-based data points were analyzed for the rankings, and the schools that placed at the top made the Global 2000 list. A total of 313 universities in the U.S. made the cut.
UT Austin ranked highest on the list as the No. 1 university in Texas, No. 22 in the U.S., and No. 35 worldwide.
Here's how CWUR ranked UT Austin's performance across the four categories:
- No. 13 – Faculty rank
- No. 66 – Employability rank
- No. 72 – Research rank
- No. 93 – Education rank
Meanwhile, UT Southwestern ranked No. 2 statewide, No. 35 nationally, and No. 69 globally; and Texas A&M ranked No. 3 statewide, No. 44 nationally, and No. 91 globally.
These are the top 10 best universities in the world for 2026, according to CWUR:
- Harvard University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Stanford University
- University of Cambridge
- University of Oxford
- Princeton University
- University of Pennsylvania
- Columbia University
- Yale University
- University of Chicago
