The BRICS alliance—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has emerged as both an economic and educational bloc. While the U.S., U.K., and Europe still dominate in global higher education prestige, the BRICS countries are investing billions to expand their universities’ reach, attract international students, and challenge Western dominance in research and rankings.
The Top BRICS Universities
Recent rankings—such as the “Three University Missions” framework compiled by the Association of Ranking Compilers (ARC)—consistently place Chinese and Russian universities at the top of the BRICS hierarchy.
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China: Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) consistently place among the world’s top institutions.
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Russia: Lomonosov Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University lead, followed by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Novosibirsk State University.
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India: Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore and IITs (Bombay, Delhi, Madras) stand out in engineering and science.
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Brazil: The University of São Paulo (USP) and Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) are Latin America’s strongest performers.
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South Africa: The University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand, and Stellenbosch University remain the leading African universities.
China dominates numerically, with more than 200 universities represented in BRICS rankings—far ahead of Russia (161), India (93), Brazil (55), and South Africa (fewer than 20).
Beyond Rankings: What BRICS Universities Teach
Most leading BRICS universities are heavily STEM-oriented, training future engineers, medical professionals, and scientists. This is no accident. Just as Western universities in the so-called “Golden Years of Capitalism” prepared students for the industrial revolution, BRICS institutions are preparing for the next epoch—artificial intelligence, robotics, and 5G technologies.
In China and Russia, billionaires exist, but unlike in the United States, they do not dominate university governance. The state, particularly the Party in China, sets the agenda. Education here is not a marketplace of private donors and endowments, but a tool of statecraft and long-term economic planning.
This contrasts sharply with the United States, where higher education has been weaponized as a savior narrative against China—but where the system is riddled with debt, tuition inflation, and the casualization of faculty labor. In China, university education can be tuition-free, with no debt burdens, and designed to produce graduates with immediately usable skills.
International Students and Global Reach
One of the most striking shifts is in international student enrollment, where China has become a global hub. It now hosts the third-largest number of foreign students in the world, behind only the U.S. and U.K. Unlike in the West, international students in China disproportionately choose humanities programs—over 200,000 enrolled compared to fewer than 20,000 in the U.S.
Other BRICS nations are making slower progress. Russia has seen international enrollments grow, with Ural Federal University reporting a twelvefold increase in BRICS-country students since 2012. Brazil, India, and South Africa host far fewer foreign students but are experimenting with scholarship and exchange programs to grow.
Scholarship initiatives—especially linked to China’s Belt and Road Initiative—play a central role. In 2024, 200 Ethiopian students received full scholarships to study in Chinese universities. Institutions like Harbin Institute of Technology and Beijing Institute of Technology have become magnets for students from Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.
Extraction and Education
The rise of BRICS education cannot be separated from the global economy of extraction—extraction of minerals, extraction of information, extraction of labor, and even extraction through surveillance and coercion. The knowledge economy in BRICS nations increasingly aims to produce technologies and machines that can help, hurt, or kill—from medical robotics to military drones.
Humanities, once central to shaping citizens and culture, risk being sidelined into boutique programs or small schools, little more than hobbies for the privileged. The future of higher education, in BRICS and globally, is being reoriented toward what capitalism demands: technical skills to maintain permanent war, digital economies, and resource exploitation.
Institutional Networks and Alliances
Beyond rankings and enrollments, BRICS has established its own inter-university cooperation networks:
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BRICS Network University (BRICS-NU): A joint initiative promoting academic mobility, joint research, and shared degree programs. It is now expanding to BRICS+ countries such as Egypt, Iran, and the UAE.
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BRICS+ Universities Association (BUA): Formed in 2023 to boost student recruitment and global visibility of BRICS institutions.
These alliances are designed not only to strengthen BRICS solidarity but also to present an alternative to Western-dominated institutions like the Ivy League, Oxbridge, and the Russell Group.
Why BRICS Universities Matter
For students in the Global South, BRICS universities increasingly represent a viable alternative to costly degrees in the U.S. or U.K. The lower tuition, growing prestige, and geopolitical alignment with emerging powers make these schools attractive.
For governments, higher education has become a strategic tool of soft power. China in particular is using its universities to deepen ties with Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America. Russia also leverages education as diplomacy, especially among post-Soviet states.
But the deeper issue is that education everywhere is now shaped by global capitalism, not just national priorities. If there is to be resistance—whether to debt peonage in the U.S. or to authoritarian technocracy in China—it will need to be international, much like labor struggles have had to cross borders.
Looking Ahead
With Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE joining BRICS+ in 2024–25, the bloc’s educational footprint will grow even larger. Universities in Cairo, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi could soon be ranked alongside Peking University and Lomonosov Moscow State.
Singapore, while not a BRICS member, remains an important comparison point: its National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) routinely rank above all but the very top Chinese universities.
As the 21st century unfolds, the global higher education order is no longer confined to the West. The BRICS countries—and their universities—are carving out a new, contested space in the knowledge economy. Whether this space leads to emancipation or further domination is an open question. For now, it looks less like the liberal dream of the university and more like the epoch of the robot, alongside permanent war.
Sources:
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ARC “Three University Missions” Rankings: brics-ratings.org
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TV BRICS: tvbrics.com
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QS BRICS Rankings 2016
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CEOWorld University Rankings (2018)
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Times Higher Education (THE) International Student Data
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BRICS Network University & BRICS+ Universities Association reports
