University of Cambridge has retained the number one spot ahead of Harvard, while MIT has jumped to the third place ahead of Yale and Oxford in the eighth QS World University Rankings.
The US takes 13 of the top 20 spots and 70 of top 300 places in the latest world rankings of Universities compiled by the international career and education network QS.
The rankings of top 300 universities, based on six indicators including surveys of over 33,000 global academics and 16,000 graduate employers, is being claimed as the largest of its kind ever conducted.
Ben Sowter, QS head of research, said the gap between Cambridge and Harvard is very small, but Cambridge's superior student-faculty ratio helped tip the balance. "Individual attention is one of the key attractions of the Oxbridge tutorial system," he said.
The results said government and private funding for technology-focussed research is eroding the dominance of traditional comprehensive universities and the average age of the top 100 institutions has dropped by seven years since 2010, reflecting the emergence of newer specialist institutions particularly in Asia.
Nunzio Quacquarelli, QS managing director said since students are generally being charged more than ever before for their education, comparative course fees of ranked universities have also been published for the first time.
Also taken into account are the views of graduate employers as a key indicator of universities' excellence and reputation. "Graduates employability is an essential mission of world-class universities and QS rankings include the informed opinion of global recruiters," he said.