Skip to main content

UW-Madison rises in 2019 world university rankings

August 5, 2019 By Käri Knutson
Photo: Aerial view of Bascom Hill and surrounding campus area

The University of Wisconsin–Madison has been ranked 25th worldwide by the Center for World University Rankings. Photo: Bryce Richter

The University of Wisconsin–Madison has been ranked 25th worldwide by the Center for World University Rankings, up from 27th last year.

The university placed 19th nationally (21st last year), quality of education, 28th (65th last year); alumni employment, 80th (79th last year); quality of faculty, 35th (32nd last year).

The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) uses seven indicators to rank the world’s universities without relying on surveys and university data submissions. The quality of education indicator, for example, measures the weighted number of an institution’s alumni who have won major awards, medals and prizes relative to the institution’s size. The alumni employment category is based on alumni who have held CEO positions at the world’s top companies relative to the university’s size. The quality of faculty measures how many faculty members who have won major international awards, prizes, and medals. Research performance is measured using four categories: the total number of research papers, high-quality publications, measured by the number of research papers appearing in top-tier journals, influence, measured by the number of research papers appearing in highly influential journals, and citations, measured by the number of highly-cited research papers.

The center is a consulting organization providing policy advice, strategic insights, and consulting services to governments and universities to improve educational and research outcomes. Its rankings are known for objectivity, transparency, and consistency and are used by students, academics, university administrators and government officials around the world.

The ranking started out in 2012 with the aim of ranking the top 100 global universities. The ranking was quickly reported worldwide, and many requests were received to expand it. Since 2014, it has listed the top 1,000 out of more than 25,000 institutions of higher education worldwide.

For the complete list, visit cwur.org

In Kiplinger’s recently released list of Best Value Colleges, UW–Madison ranked 11th for public colleges in-state, 25th for public colleges out-of-state, and 134th overall for both publics and privates. Kiplinger’s looks for schools with reasonable price tags, solid financial aid for students who qualify and low average debt among students who borrow. For the public colleges list, they rank schools according to in-state costs and calculate out-of-state costs separately for the out-of-state ranking. Visit here for more information.

Tags: faculty, rankings