Introduction: Early Universities

The University of Bologna established around 1088 is recognized as the world's oldest university in continuous operation. This universitas, under Roman law, was a "national" guild / union of masters and scholars, turned into one for legal purposes. It was called a "Studium Generale" by the Pope, open to students from anywhere, having the capacity to issue degrees. Each guild gave some protection against local authorities, and also some leverage dealing with teachers booksellers and landlords. By the early 13th century, these national guilds had coalesced into two corporations, the "universitas" cismontanorum (this side of the mountains) for students from Italy outside of Bologna, and the "universitas" ultramontanorum for students from north of the Alps.

In Paris the Sorbonne opened in 1150, becoming known as the Université de Paris. In England Henry II banned English students from attending this university with Oxford (which had opened earlier) expanding considerably. Cambridge University 100 kms east, formed in 1209 after Oxford townspeople executed students for causing a woman's death.

The University of Naples Federico II (Italian: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II) named after its founder, Frederick II in 1224 is said to be the oldest state-funded university in the world.

Click here for other medieval universities and their background.

End Intro.

Main Body: Top Universities Worldwide

Below are www.TopUniversities.com rankings for 2026 plus details of where to go via wiki links

Click here for an alternative ranking of the top universities based on reputation by timeshighereducation.com ranked on "best in their field in research" according to a select group of experts and with endowment grants at far higher levels than we can perhaps expect to see here in Australia. Their Top 20 list excluded Hong Kong, Nanyang Singapore, UCL London, and the two Australian universities NSW and Melbourne, replacing them with five additional US universities.

  1. Princeton New Jersey 80 km SW of New York
  1. Yale New Haven Connecticut 130 km NE of New York
  1. Johns Hopkins University Baltimore 60 km NE of Washington DC
  1. UCLA (Los Angeles)
  1. Columbia Upper Manhattan New York

Below is the full Top 20 list from www.TopUniversities.com

  1. MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology Boston 350 km NE of New York
  2. Imperial College London
  3. Stanford at PaloAlto, 44 km SE of San Francisco. It is 20 km NW of San Jose with Mountain View, Google's location, mid-way between them
  4. Oxford 90 km NW of London
  5. Harvard Boston 350 km NE of New York
  6. Cambridge 100 km North of London
  7. ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
  8. NUS National University of Singapore
  9. UCL University College London
  10. Caltech California Institute of Technology Los Angeles
  11. University of Hong Kong
  12. NTU Nanyang Technological University Singapore
  13. University of Chicago
  14. Peking University Beijing
  15. University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia 150 km SW of New York
  16. Cornell Ithaca 350 km NW of New York
  17. Tsinghua (Qinghua) University Beijing
  18. University of California, Berkeley 20km NE of San Francisco over the bay
  19. University of Melbourne Parkville Melbourne
  20. University of New South Wales Kensington Sydney

 

25. University of Sydney Camperdown Sydney

32. Australian National University Canberra

42. UQ University of Queensland St Lucia Brisbane

226. QUT Queensland University of Technology Brisbane

268. GU Griffith University Mt Gravatt Brisbane and Gold Coast

** End of Report

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