The United States comes out on top in an authoritative list of international university rankings published Tuesday, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University leading the way.

MIT came top of the QS World University Rankings for the second year running, while Harvard displaced Britain's Cambridge University to take second spot in the 2013 table.

US institutions made up six of the top 10, with the remaining four places being filled by British universities.

The QS rankings included a record number of UK institutions in the top 20, with Edinburgh and King's College London making their first appearances.

According to the study, graduates from Oxford and Cambridge were the most employable in the world.

The rankings take into account the subject range, research results and academic reputation offered by 3,000 institutions internationally.

Source: AFP