See where Duke and UNC rank on Time’s list of top universities in the world
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Time ranks Duke 14th and UNC 104th on its World’s Top Universities of 2026 list.
- Time urges elites to curb legacy preferences, athletic recruitment & non-academic ratings.
- Rankings weight academic performance, innovation/economic impact and global impact.
As competition heats up on the basketball court between Duke and UNC this weekend, Time magazine has weighed in on where the two rank on the global stage in its list of “The World’s Top Universities of 2026.”
In Time’s eyes, Duke sweeps. It ranks 14th among universities across the world, according to the list. Carolina sits at 104th, with neighbors like University of Arizona and Purdue University.
Time considers Duke an “Ivy-Plus,” among other non-Ivies like Stanford, MIT and the University of Chicago.
But rather than simply patting these Ivy-Pluses on the back, Time has a message for them. An article about the rankings urges these elite universities to stop participating in the wealth and power feedback loop that allows the rich to get richer while qualified, lower-income students go overlooked. Legacy preferences, non-academic ratings and athletic recruitment all contribute to this problem, economists Raj Chetty and John Friedman write in Time.
Meritocracy and diversity aren’t opposing ideas in higher education admissions, the pair write. When merit is measured “by what predicts success — not by parental wealth — meritocracy can actually increase diversity.”
“Admissions policies that present non-meritocratic barriers to many students reinforce the perception that elite universities protect privilege instead of cultivating talent,” they write.
Time’s top 15 universities are as follows:
- University of Oxford
- Yale University
- Stanford University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- The University of Chicago
- Harvard University
- University of Cambridge
- Imperial College London
- University of Michigan
- University of Pennsylvania
- Princeton University
- Johns Hopkins University
- California Institute of Technology
- Duke University
- Cornell University
Concerns that Chinese research universities are ranking higher than American ones have gained momentum in recent weeks. The Time article contends that while that may be true in innovation and economic impact, U.S. and U.K. universities “continue to lead in academic performance.” The top Chinese university on its list is at 17: the University of Hong Kong, in a special administrative region of China.
Time considered three weighted pillars in its rankings: academic capacity and performance (60%), innovation and economic impact (30%), and global impact (10%).
This story was originally published February 6, 2026 at 8:00 AM with the headline "See where Duke and UNC rank on Time’s list of top universities in the world."
