QS Rankings 2026: No Pakistani University in Top 350 – A Wake-Up Call for Higher Education

The QS World University Rankings 2026 are out and sadly, not a single Pakistani university made it to the top 350. Only two Pakistani universities could make their way to the top 500. Quaid-e-Azam University ranked at 354 and NUST ranked at 371. These stats reflect the alarming situation of the education sector in Pakistan.

Other Pakistani universities in the ranking include: Punjab University at 542, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad at 654, COMSATS, Islamabad at 664, PIEAS at 721, UET Lahore at 801, University of Peshawar at 901, Lahore University at 951 and Aga Khan University and University of Karachi at 1,001. Bahauddin Zakaria University, International Islamic University, Riphah International University and University of Management and Technology at 1201 and Islamia University of Bahawalpur is at 1401.  Only a single university from Sindh made it to the top 1500.

Globally, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) kept its spot as the world’s top university in the QS 2026 rankings. It was followed by Imperial College London, Stanford, Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, National University of Singapore, UCL London and Caltech in the top ten. 

QS South Asian Rankings for 2026 will be released later this year or early next year. The university of Karachi was ranked at 58 and Aga Khan University was ranked at 62 in the 2025 South Asia ranking.