UC Berkeley is the No. 1 public university in the U.S and the eighth-best university in the world, according to the Times Higher Education’s 2025 World University Rankings, released on Oct. 8. Berkeley has held the ranking of top U.S. public university for nine of the past 10 years.
This year’s rankings evaluated more than 2,000 universities from 115 countries and territories and were based on five criteria: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry engagement and international outlook.
In the overall global rankings, which included both public and private universities, the United Kingdom’s University of Oxford ranked first, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Cambridge, Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology. Berkeley came in eighth, followed by Imperial College London and Yale University to round out the Top 10.
Berkeley’s overall score and ranking have risen over the past decade, up from 13th in 2016.
When it comes to the best U.S. public universities, UCLA ranked second in today’s rankings and took 18th place globally, followed by the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (22nd); the University of Washington (25th) and UC San Diego (34th).
The highest-ranked U.S. public and private universities included MIT (2nd), Harvard University (3rd), Princeton University (4th), Stanford University (6th), the California Institute of Technology (7th), Berkeley (8th), and Yale University (10th). Completing the Top 10 were the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania (tied for 14th), and Johns Hopkins University (16th).
Berkeley is consistently rated among the top universities in the nation and across the globe. This year, Berkeley was named America’s top public university in both the Wall Street Journal‘s 2025 Best Colleges list and Forbes magazine’s list of America’s top colleges. And, for 15 out of the past 20 years, U.S. News and World Report has ranked Berkeley the No. 1 public school in the nation.
According to PitchBook, Berkeley also generates more startup founders, companies and female entrepreneurs than any other school in the world.