The 10 best universities in the world, according to US News & World Report

Today, U.S. News & World Report released its sixth annual Best Global Universities ranking. Universities in the United States earned eight of the top 10 spots, further solidifying America's reputation as home to some of the strongest schools in the world.

For their 2020 list, U.S. News evaluated 1,500 schools — an increase from the 1,250 schools evaluated last year — across 81 countries.

The ranking takes 13 different variables that measure academic research into consideration, including academic reputation, international collaboration, publications and citations. In order to gather information in these categories, U.S. News partnered with Clarivate Analytics to survey 26,810 professors, researchers, senior administrators, students and university employees from across the globe.

You can read more about U.S. News' methodology here.

Here are the 10 best global universities, according to U.S. News:

Location: Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Total enrollment: 45,476
International students: 7,313

Location: Cambridge, England, U.K.
Total enrollment: ~19,000
International students: ~3,000

Location: Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Total enrollment: 7,996
International students: 1,950

Location: New York, New York, U.S.
Total enrollment: 26,586
International students: 9,745

Location: Pasadena, California, U.S.
Total enrollment: 2,233
International students: 681

Location: Oxford, England, U.K.
Total enrollment: 24,299
International students: 6,772

Location: Berkeley, California, U.S.
Total enrollment: 36,468
International students: 6,375

Location: Stanford, California, U.S.
Total enrollment: 15,878
International students: 3,608

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Total enrollment: 11,231
International students: 3,848

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Total enrollment: 20,595
International students: 5,353

Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, earned the top spot on U.S. News' ranking of global universities.

Founded in 1636, Harvard is the oldest college in the United States. The Ivy League school is known for its historic legacy, famous alumni and generous financial aid, which the university is able to provide in part because of an endowment worth roughly $40 billion.

Columbia University and Princeton University are the only other Ivy League schools to crack the top 10. Two public universities — UC Berkeley and the University of Washington, Seattle — managed to make it into the top tier as well thanks to their strong regional and global research reputations.

The University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom were the only two schools located outside of the United States to make the top 10 list.

Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube!

Don't miss:

• Students who don't fill out FAFSA are missing out on their share of billions in financial aid
• Women are slowly pursuing more high-paying degrees, but the pay gap remains, says new research
• The top 10 private US colleges that pay off have one thing in common—they're super hard to get into