Oxford and Cambridge slip down the world’s university rankings – as two red-bricks drop out of the 100

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As students prepare to get stuck into their A-Levels, the Times Higher Education has published its annual ranking of the world's universities.

The good news is that UK universities make up 10 per cent of the world's 100 highest-ranked institutions. The bad news? We've lost two from the top 100 – while our top two have slipped down.

For the sixth year in a row, Harvard came top of the list, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT to its friends) and Stanford.

Meanwhile, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford both slipped two places, to take the fourth and fifth spots respectively – while Bristol and Durham have both been knocked out of the top 100 altogether.

With 43 institutions in the top 100, the US is the best-represented country. The UK follows, with 10 (down from 12 last year). 

Asia had 17 institutions in the ranking, with China breaking into the list for the first time, with Tsinghua University hitting 18th place, while Peking University came in at number 21. 

Phil Baty, THE's rankings editor, pointed to funding cuts. 

"Perhaps the UK’s continued cuts in higher education funding – Higher Education Funding Council for England received a £150m budget slash this year – and series of immigration measures affecting overseas students and scholars, are starting to have an impact on its global reputation.

"The UK will have to ensure that it can still draw in talent and investment from across the world and it does not lose its position at the heart of higher education’s global elite."

The world's top universities

2016 rank 2015 rank Institution Country
1 1 Harvard University US
2 4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology US
3 5 Stanford University US
4 2 University of Cambridge UK
5 3 University of Oxford UK
6 6 University of California, Berkeley US
7 7 Princeton University US
8 8 Yale University US
9 10 Columbia University US
10 9 California Institute of Technology US
11 11 University of Chicago US
12 12 University of Tokyo Japan
13 13 University of California, Los Angeles US
14 19 University of Michigan US
15 14 Imperial College London UK
16 23 University of Pennsylvania US
17 20 Cornell University US
18 26 Tsinghua University China
19 15 ETH Zürich Switzerland
20 17 University College London UK
21 32 Peking University China
22 18 Johns Hopkins University US
23 16 University of Toronto Canada
24 22 London School of Economics UK
25 20 New York University US
26 24 National University of Singapore Singapore
27 27 Kyoto University Japan
28 34 Duke University US
29 33 University of Washington US
30 30 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign US