Purdue tops list of the world’s 25 best managed universities

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University topped a 2025 list of the 25 best managed universities globally for its effort in demonstrating sustained excellence the past decade in student and faculty satisfaction, financial stability, teaching and research quality, and trust in graduate outcomes.

In the report by Canadian global management consulting firm Organizational Excellence Specialists titled “The Top 25 Best Managed Colleges and Universities,” Purdue is one of just three U.S. universities and six in North America recognized for setting benchmarks for effective leadership, management and innovative approaches, providing lessons for countries striving to improve the performance of higher education institutions.

Listed as the best-practice performers the past decade, the top 10 institutions in order are Purdue, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), National University of Singapore, ETH Zurich (Switzerland), University of Tokyo (Japan), University of Melbourne (Australia), Stanford University (U.S.), University of Toronto (Canada), KU Leuven (Belgium) and Seoul National University (South Korea). The other U.S. institution on the list, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was No. 22.

Purdue, with record-high student satisfaction and over a decade of tuition freezes initiated by President Mitch Daniels and continued during President Mung Chiang’s administration, stands as a leader among its higher education peers in the U.S. and globally in affordability, transparency and student-focused governance, according to the report.

“Purdue pioneered fiscal accountability while improving public confidence in higher education,” the report states. “It continues to model strong alignment between strategic priorities and measurable student success. Purdue University serves as a leading benchmark, demonstrating a proven commitment to affordability, public trust and outcomes.”

Highlights of the regional breakdown of the top academic institutions:

• North America: Several universities in the U.S. (Purdue, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Canada (University of Toronto, McGill University and University of British Columbia) stand out for consistently excelling across six performance areas — student and faculty satisfaction, financial stability, teaching and research quality, and trust in outcomes.
• United Kingdom and Asia: England, Scotland, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong show strong links between stakeholder satisfaction and public trust.
• Europe: Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand have select universities with strong financial results and high public trust and confidence.
• Scandinavia and China: Finland, Sweden and Norway have emerging leading universities rated in the top 15 with one Chinese university ranked in the top 20.

To request a copy of the free report, “The Top 25 Best Managed Colleges and Universities (2025),” go to the Organizational Excellence Specialists website here.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.