Nanyang Technological University has beaten the National University of Singapore in the prestigious Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings on June 8, 2017.

NTU moved up two places to be ranked 11th, while NUS fell from the 12th to 15th position, in a world where higher education has been turned into a competitive sport with annual rankings lending credence and validation to the pursuit of knowledge.

NTU registered improvements across four of the six metrics that QS uses to rank universities. Its biggest gains are in employer reputation and citations per faculty.

NTU's improvement has been impressive, as they jumped from 74th in 2010 to 11th this year.

Ben Sowter, research director at QS, attributed the drop in ranking for NUS as a result of universities worldwide escalating their ever-increasing standards, while NTU's rise is part of a trend where its "heavy technological focus" in research played a crucial role.

NTU also has fewer faculty members, 4,300 as opposed to 5,100 at NUS, resulting in a higher citations-per-faculty score.

The Singapore Management University was placed in the 441-450 category in 2017.

As a relatively young university, SMU made its debut in the respectable 431 to 440 band in 2016.

However, SMU graduates earned the most, with a mean gross monthly salary of S$3,722. Their peers from NUS and NTU took home S$3,541 and S$3,424 respectively.

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