The global university ranking organisation QS has issued the list for 2026, in which no Pakistani universities could make it to the top 350 universities in the world.
According to the QS ranking, two federal universities, Quaid-e-Azam University and the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), have secured rankings of 354 and 371, respectively.
While the country’s largest university, the University of Karachi, has managed to make it to the top 1,001 universities, no other university from Sindh has been able to make it to the top 1,500 universities.
Meanwhile, other notable Pakistani universities in the rankings include Punjab University (542), Lahore University of Management Sciences (555), and the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (654).
COMSATS University Islamabad is at 664, Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences 721, UET Lahore 801, University of Peshawar 901, Lahore University 951, Aga Khan University and University of Karachi at 1001, while Islamia University of Bahawalpur is ranked at 1,401.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US) ranked first, Imperial College London (UK) ranked second, Stanford University (US) ranked third, University of Oxford (UK) ranked fourth, Harvard University (US) ranked fifth, Cambridge University (UK) ranked sixth, ETH Zurich (SZ) ranked seventh, National University of Singapore (SZ) ranked eighth, UCL London (UK) ranked ninth, and the California Institute of Technology (US) ranked tenth around the world.
Meanwhile, in the 2025 South Asian rankings, the University of Karachi ranked 58th, while Aga Khan University ranked 62nd, IBA Karachi 70, Iqra University 110, IBA Sukkur 120, NED University 131st, Dow University of Health Sciences 140, Mehran Engineering University Jamshoro 168, Ziauddin University 240, Sindh University Jamshoro 263rd, and the University of Balochistan ranked 278.
