These Canadian schools made the top 50 of a new best universities in the world ranking

A lot of Canadian post-secondary schools made a new ranking of the best universities in the world.

But only a few of this country’s universities had good enough grades to be in the top 50 globally.

On June 1, the 2026 edition of the Global 2000 list by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) was released.

Universities were graded by CWUR on four factors that don’t rely on surveys and university data submissions: education (worth 25%), employability (worth 25%), faculty (worth 10%), and research (worth 40%).

Then, the more than 21,000 post-secondary institutions analyzed were ranked based on those grades.

Only the top 2,000 universities made the list, including 38 universities in Canada.

Here are the top 10 universities in the world according to CWUR’s ranking:

1. Harvard University
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3. Stanford University
4. University of Cambridge
5. University of Oxford
6. Princeton University
7. University of Pennsylvania
8. Columbia University
9. Yale University
10. University of Chicago

Only three post-secondary schools in Canada made the top 50 of this ranking.

The University of Toronto ranked 23rd, McGill University ranked 28th, and the University of British Columbia ranked 49th globally.

There’s a big gap between the top three Canadian universities and the other post-secondary schools in this country that are included in the 2026 CWUR ranking.

Here are the next highest ranking Canadian schools:

• University of Alberta — 82nd
• University of Montreal — 126th
• Western University — 187th
• McMaster University — 190th
• University of Calgary — 203rd
• University of Waterloo — 216th
• University of Ottawa — 226th
• University of Manitoba — 298th
• Laval University — 313th
• Queen’s University — 337th
• Dalhousie University — 360th
• Simon Fraser University — 419th
• University of Saskatchewan — 430th
• University of Victoria — 449th
• York University — 493rd

Those schools are followed by the University of Guelph, Carleton University, University of Sherbrooke, Concordia University, Memorial University of Newfoundland, University of Quebec at Montreal, and Toronto Metropolitan University.

Even more Canadian universities are part of this year’s list, but ranked further down between 1,000th and 2,000th overall.

That includes the University of Windsor, the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, the University of New Brunswick, the University of Regina, Wilfrid Laurier University, Brock University, the École de technologie supérieure, Lakehead University, the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, the University of Lethbridge, Trent University, Laurentian University, and Ontario Tech University.

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This article’s cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.