Three New Jersey Colleges Rank as The World’s Top Universities (2026), According to TIME Magazine

Can admission to top universities be both merit-based and economically inclusive? TIME magazine took on that question in developing a new ranking of the world’s best universities. The magazine’s latest ranking looks directly at whether top universities are expanding opportunity or primarily serving students from high-income families. Three New Jersey colleges made TIME’s list of The World’s Top Universities of 2026, recognized both for their strong academics and for increasing socioeconomic diversity.

TIME used data from Statista R, making sure schools they evaluated are: more than 3 years old, enroll at least 2,000 students, offer bachelor’s degrees, have at least one heavily cited researcher, are among the most renowned or frequently mentioned universities, and applied through TIME’s open call to action. The schools were scored on academic capacity and performance, innovation and economic impact, and global engagement.

Princeton University almost made the Top 10, ranking 11th. The Ivy League school was founded in 1746, making it one of the oldest colleges in the U.S. U.S. News & World Report ranked Princeton No. 16 on its list of the top universities around the world for 2025-2026, as well as No. 1 in New Jersey for 2026; and it’s No. 1 in the country on WalletHub’s list of the Best College & University Rankings for 2025 for its admission rate, graduation rate, student-to-faculty ratio, and post-attendance median salary. It placed second for gender and racial diversity.

it has one of the most beautiful college campuses, according to Travel + Leisure (we agree of course), and is considered the most Instagrammable for its striking Gothic architecture.

Rutgers University, with campuses in New Brunswick, Camden and Newark, came in at No. 275. The New Brunswick and Newark campuses ranked 156 and 645, respectively, on U.S. News & World Report’s top universities around the world for 2025-2026.

The New Brunswick campus placed second on U.S. News & World Report’s top colleges for New Jersey for 2026, and falls at No. 42 on the national university list, No. 16 in Top Public Schools and No. 175 in Best Value Schools.

New Jersey Institute of Technology, in Newark, came in at No. 396. NJIT is a polytechnic university that focuses on STEM education, research, economic development and service.

Money magazine included NJIT as one of its Best Public Colleges in the U.S.; it is the No. 1 public university for alumni earnings, economic mobility and academic profile, according to the New York Times; and is a Top 50 Public National University, according to U.S. News & World Report, as cited on the school’s website.

NJIT landed third on WalletHub’s list of the Best College & University Rankings for 2025 for net cost and post-attendance median salary, fifth for low on-campus crime and high graduation rate, and sixth for admission rate.

It also placed No. 4 on the state list, No. 80 in the national university list, No. 40 in Top Public Schools, and No. 83 in Best Value Schools

Last year, two of the colleges on this list were named to another list that matches students with career pathways, according to Career.io. The goal was to uncover the combinations of education and employment that college students think are most lucrative and rewarding for a career. Of the 3,018 people ages 18 to 25 who were surveyed, three New Jersey university-company pairings made the list: Princeton University with Johnson & Johnson, and Rutgers University with Merck & Co.

New Jersey schools that rank on TIME Magazine’s Top 500 Universities in the World:

11. Princeton University
275. Rutgers University
396. New Jersey Institute of Technology

These are the Top 20 Universities in the World, according to TIME:

1. University of Oxford, United Kingdom
2. Yale University
3. Stanford University
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5. The University of Chicago
6. Harvard University
7. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
8. Imperial College of London, United Kingdom
9. University of Michigan
10. University of Pennsylvania
11. Princeton University
12. Johns Hopkins University
13. California Institute of Technology
14. Duke University
15. Cornell University
16. The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
17. The University of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region, China
18. ETH Zurich, Switzerland
19. University of Zurich, Switzerland
20. University of Wisconsin-Madison

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