CCNY students celebrate commencement. The College is ranked in the top 2.2% of institutions in the world.
The City College of New York ranks in the top 2.2% out of 21,291 universities worldwide, according to the 2026 edition of the outcome-based Global 2000 list published by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) today. CCNY has been consistently ranked in the top 2% for more than a decade.
CCNY is #452 among the 21,291 degree-granting institutions of higher education analyzed by CWUR; #114 in the United States and #131 regionally (USA and Canada). Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, in that order, occupy the first three places on the rankings.
CCNY’s other placings on CWUR’s 2026 list include: #22 for Quality of Education, #536 for Employability, and #978 for Research Performance.
These amounted to an overall score of 74.9.
CWUR publishes the largest academic rankings of global universities. The rankings are unique in that:
- Objective indicators are used for all four key pillars underlying the methodology of the ranking (education, employability, faculty, and research) with no reliance on surveys and university data submissions;
- Equal emphasis is put on student-related and faculty-related indicators;
- 81 million outcome-based data points are used for this year’s rankings; and
- 21,291 universities are ranked according to their academic performance
About the methodology
CWUR uses seven objective and robust outcome-based indicators grouped into four areas to rank the world’s universities:
- Education - based on the academic success of a university’s alumni, measured relative to the university's size (25%);
- Employability - based on the professional success of a university’s alumni, measured relative to the university's size (25%);
- Faculty - measured by the number of faculty members who have received top academic distinctions (10%);
- Research output - measured by the total number of research articles (10%);
- High-quality publications - measured by the number of research articles appearing in top-tier journals (10%);
- Influence - measured by the number of research articles appearing in highly-influential journals (10%); and
- Citations - measured by the number of highly-cited research articles (10%).
About the Center for World University Rankings
CWUR is a leading consulting organization providing policy advice, strategic insights, and consulting services to governments and universities to improve educational and research outcomes. CWUR publishes authoritative global university rankings, known for objectivity, transparency, and consistency, which are trusted by students, academics, university administrators, and governments from around the world.
Since 2012, CWUR has been publishing the only academic ranking of global universities that assesses the quality of education, employability, quality of faculty, and research without relying on surveys and university data submissions. The ranking started out as a project in the Jeddah Governorate of Makkah Province, Saudi Arabia with the aim of rating the top 100 world universities. It was quickly reported worldwide by universities and the media and many requests were received to expand it. In 2014, the ranking expanded to list the top 1000, and in 2019 the top 2000 out of roughly twenty-one thousand universities worldwide, making it the largest academic ranking of global universities.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers, and society. At City College, more than 16,500 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity, and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College's mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic, and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba
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