The South African university coming after UCT and Wits

US News has published its 2025/26 Best Global Universities ranking, which includes 15 South African universities that made it into the global top 2,000 ranking.

However, only three universities managed to improve their ranking from last year, with one – the University of Johannesburg – beating out Stellenbosch University to become ranked third.

Meanwhile, top performers, UCT and Wits, dropped in the global ranking, although the former remains the only local school in the global top 150.

The Best Global Universities rankings evaluate more than 2,250 schools on academic research and reputation.

The rankings place specific emphasis on a university’s reputation, which is based on the quality of its publications and how they are cited globally.

While the 2025 ranking listed 15 South African universities, the same as in 2024, there were several changes.

Most notably, the University of Johannesburg is one of the few local schools to improve its overall standing on the global ranking, and with it, overtook Stellenbosch University for third position.

Other climbers in the ranking include Nelson Mandela Bay University, which moved up to 12th overall, the University of the Western Cape, and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, which made its debut.

However, this saw other universities, like Durban University of Technology and Tshwane University of Technology slip down, while the University of Limpopo dropped off the rankings entirely.

The same trend is reflected in other university rankings this year: South Africa’s universities are performing poorly relative to their global peers.

Experts have noted that this could come down to a weakening research performance and limited financial backing from the South African government.

While several countries are prioritising the development of education and science, South Africa is struggling to keep pace.

Without stronger funding and strategic planning, South Africa risks falling further behind in the rapidly evolving global academic landscape.

While South African universities are quick to celebrate their positioning on global rankings, academics have urged caution around using them too comparatively.

Rankings typically assess various aspects of university quality, such as academic reputation, research output, faculty expertise and student satisfaction; they often don’t capture the full breadth of the impact of work

Amid criticism for their overall function in a society like South Africa’s, where there is an evident mismatch between the skills needed in the workforce and those supplied by tertiary education, universities have defended their role.

This includes shaping public policy and discourse, as well as advancing science and strenthening democracy and human rights.

Many of these impacts cannot be measured quantitatively in ranking methodologies.

The methodology for the US News ranking assesses universities on 13 indicators to determine and measure global research performance.

These 13 indicators and their weights in the ranking formula can be found below: