Nigerian universities have once again failed to secure a spot in the Quacquarelli Symonds, QS top 1000 universities in the world for 2026.
This marks the third consecutive year of Nigerian universities’ absence from the global academic elite list.
Released on June 19, 2025, the rankings revealed that only three institutions—the University of Ibadan (UI), the University of Lagos (UNILAG), and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU)—earned a mention.
However, the three institutions failed to rank among the QS top 1000 universities in the world. UI and UNILAG were ranked in the 1,001–1,200 band for both the 2025 and 2026 editions, while ABU appeared for the first time in the 1,201–1,400 range.
Pan-Atlantic Kompass reports that the QS World University Rankings is a global benchmark that evaluates institutions across eight indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, international faculty ratio, international student ratio, international research network, employment outcomes, and sustainability.
For 2026, the rankings assessed over 1,500 universities across 106 countries, with Egypt leading Africa with 20 universities and South Africa following with 11.
Tunisia has four universities in the ranking, Ghana and Morocco each had two universities listed, while Kenya, Libya, Sudan, Uganda, and Ethiopia had one each.
Notably, the only African universities to break into the top 300 are from South Africa with the University of Cape Town ranking 150th and the University of Witwatersrand ranking 291st.
Below are the top 10 Universities according to QS World University Rankings 2026:
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology – United States
2. Imperial College London – United Kingdom
3. Stanford University – United States
4. University of Oxford – United Kingdom
5. Harvard University – United States
6. University of Cambridge – United Kingdom
7. ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – Switzerland
8. National University of Singapore – Singapore
9. University College London – United Kingdom
10. California Institute of Technology – United States
