Dahulu, berkuliah di universitas top dunia adalah priviledge bagi mereka yang mampu secara ekonomi saja. Namun, seiring dengan perkembangan dunia pendidikan, kini informasi dan kesempatan untuk berkuliah di luar negeri khususnya universitas terbaik dunia semakin terbuka luas untuk semua kalangan. 

Beberapa lembaga seperti QS University dan Times Higher Education secara rutin menerbitkan penilaian mereka terhadap universitas di seluruh dunia. Hal-hal penting seperti reputasi akademik, rasio mahasiswa-dosen, jumlah sitasi, reputasi dosen, jumlah dosen asing/internasional, dan jumlah mahasiswa asing/internasional menjadi kriteria penilaian. Universitas-universitas yang menduduki rangking teratas baik di tingkat dunia, benua/region, maupun negara akhirnya menjadi rujukan kualitas pendidikan tinggi dan menjadi impian para siswa.   

QS World University Rangkings telah menerbitkan peringkat universitas terbaik dunia untuk tahun 2023. Universitas terbaik dunia peringkat 1 hingga 10 dapat dilihat pada gambar di atas. Adapun peringkat 11 hingga 100 bisa dilihat di daftar berikut: 

11. National University of Singapore (NUS)

12. Peking University

13. University of Pennsylvania

14. Tsinghua University

15. The University of Edinburgh

=16. EPFL

=16. Princeton University

18. Yale University

19. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU)

20. Cornell University

21. The University of Hong Kong

22. Columbia University

23. The University of Tokyo

24. Johns Hopkins University

25. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

26. Université PSL

27. University of California, Berkeley (UCB)

28. The University of Manchester

29. Seoul National University

30. The Australian National University

31. McGill University

32. Northwestern University

33. The University of Melbourne

=34. Fudan University

=34. University of Toronto

36. Kyoto University

37. King's College London

38. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

39. New York University (NYU)

40. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

41. The University of Sydney

=42. KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology

=42. Zhejiang University

44. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

45. The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney)

46. Shanghai Jiao Tong University

47. University of British Columbia

48. Institut Polytechnique de Paris

49. Technical University of Munich

=50. Duke University

=50. The University of Queensland

52. Carnegie Mellon University

53. University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

54. City University of Hong Kong

55. Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech)

56. The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

57. Monash University

58. University of Amsterdam

59. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

60. Sorbonne University

=61. Delft University of Technology

=61. University of Bristol

63. Brown University

64. The University of Warwick

=65. Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

=65. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

67. Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)

68. Osaka University

69. Universit Paris-Saclay

70. Universiti Malaya (UM)

71. Pohang University of Science And Technology (POSTECH)

72. University of Texas at Austin

73. Yonsei University

74. Korea University

75. Lomonosov Moscow State University

76. KU Leuven

77. National Taiwan University (NTU)

78. University of Southampton

79. Tohoku University

80. University of Washington

81. University of Glasgow

82. University of Copenhagen

=83. University of Wisconsin-Madison

=83. University of Zurich

85. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

86. University of Leeds

87. The University of Auckland

88. Georgia Institute of Technology

89. KTH Royal Institute of Technology

90. The University of Western Australia

91. University of Birmingham

92. Durham University

93. Pennsylvania State University

94. University of Science and Technology of China

95. Lund University

=96. The University of Sheffield

=96. University of St Andrews

98. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

99. Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)

100. Rice University