Find your university in the Latin America University Rankings 2026

������������’s University of São Paulo has retained its position as the best institution in Latin America for the second year in a row in the ̽����Ƶ Latin America University Rankings.

Brazilian universities continue to dominate the list, taking seven of the top 10 places, despite the concerns about the potential long-term damage wrought under Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency.

Both the University of Campinas and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) remained in second and sixth positions respectively, while Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) moved from 13th place to 10th.

The other three Brazilian universities shifted up or down by one position but remained in the top 10.

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Chile’s top institution, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, which was number one in the region between 2019 and 2023, secured third place, up one from the previous edition, while two Mexican universities – Tecnológico de Monterrey and National Autonomous University of Mexico – also appeared in the top 10 at seventh and ninth place respectively.

The National Autonomous University of Mexico moved up from 15th place last year, marking the first time since 2017 that two Mexican universities are in the top 10.

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Latin America University Rankings 2026: top 10

Note: the previous ranking was named the 2024 edition, but no years have been skipped since the inaugural Latin America University Rankings in 2016.

However, of Mexico’s 25 ranked universities, 20 have slipped down in the rankings this year as the country continues to struggle with low higher education participation rates.  

Daniela Salgado Gutiérrez, director of research in the School of Pedagogy and Psychology at Universidad Panamericana, said limited public spending on education “creates a substantial challenge for the public system in sustaining quality at scale”.

“Private universities, in turn, face the dual challenge of offering high-quality educational opportunities that remain affordable to only a small segment of the population, while also operating with limited integration and collaboration with the public sector,” she said.

“Until this occurs, the broader challenge of inclusivity and accessibility will remain unresolved, as large segments of the population continue to face structural, economic and geographic barriers that prevent them from entering and completing higher education.”

She added that Mexican universities “need broader access to international collaborative schemes, particularly for research funding and financing mechanisms that strengthen research capacity, academic training and the ability to serve a greater share of the population”.

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It is also the first time since the rankings began in 2016 that the University of Chile is not in the top 10, having fallen from ninth to 13th place.

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Ecuador’s UEES Espiritu Santo University jumped to 16th place – the first time ever that Ecuador has ranked in the top 20 – while Panama also joined the rankings for the first time, with the University of Panama in band 151+.

Overall, 16 universities make their debut in the rankings.

Methodological changes contributed to some of the shifts seen this year. Previously, scoring in the Latin America University Rankings was based on comparison with other universities in the Latin America region only, but this year scoring has been done on a global basis as it is in the World University Rankings. This has led to some significant drops in scores and ranks across the table. 

Dawisson Belém Lopes, professor of international and comparative politics at ������������’s UFMG, said the results show Brazilian universities are “recovering fast from the years of severe underfunding – and ostensible underappreciation – by the two consecutive presidential administrations of Temer and Bolsonaro”.

During Bolsonaro’s four-year presidential term, from 2019 to 2023, funding for federal universities fell to levels not seen since 2005, while the science ministry’s budget was also cut severely.

His far-right government’s anti-science stance meant universities struggled to afford to cover their day-to-day costs, and many academics fled the country.

The THE Latin America University Rankings 2026 is based on data from between 2020 and 2025.

“As most research work in the country – roughly 90 per cent of all published papers – is connected with publicly funded higher education institutions, the way Brazilian universities fare in comparative assessments is very sensitive to governmental funds,” Belém Lopes continued.

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Noting the mixed results, he said there was “still much to be accomplished” but added: “South America, of which Brazil makes up a half, is definitely back in the game."

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com