UC Berkeley has been named the top public university in North America for 2026 by Times Higher Education. The announcement was made on October 8, 2025. In the global rankings, the university is placed ninth overall.

The recognition follows a series of similar accolades in recent weeks. UC Berkeley was also ranked as the number one public university in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. Earlier this year, U.S. News rated several of Berkeley's graduate programs highly across fields such as social sciences, engineering, computer science, and business. Additionally, PitchBook’s 2025 rankings found that UC Berkeley alumni have started more venture-backed companies than graduates from any other university worldwide for three consecutive years.

Chancellor Rich Lyons responded to the news: “We are honored to once again be recognized as one of the world’s best universities, and the top public university in North America. The data affirm the excellence and impact of our extraordinary research enterprise and the extent to which discoveries on the Berkeley campus advance the health, well-being and prosperity of people around the world. So, too, do those data confirm all that Berkeley does as a powerful engine of economic mobility, and a provider of affordable world-class education, accessible to all. That is how and why we lift more students further up the economic ladder than any other university.”

Times Higher Education is based in the United Kingdom and evaluates 2,191 colleges and universities across 115 countries and territories. Its ranking methodology includes five categories: teaching quality, research environment, research quality, international outlook, and industry factors such as patents and income.

Berkeley has held Times Higher Education’s top U.S. public university spot for ten out of the last eleven years. In this year’s global ranking among public universities, UC Berkeley placed third behind only Cambridge University and Imperial College London—both located in the UK.

The publication’s global top ten list includes both private and public institutions: University of Oxford (1), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2), Princeton University (tied-3), Cambridge (tied-3), Harvard University (tied-5), Stanford University (tied-5), California Institute of Technology (7), Imperial College London (8), UC Berkeley (9), and Yale University (10).