Brian Manzullo

Detroit Free Press

Ohio State may be ahead of Michigan in the football rankings, but it's a different story on the academic side.

Once again, the University of Michigan was recognized as the top public university in the U.S.

The 2016-17 QS World University Rankings were revealed this week, with U-M checking in at No. 23, the only American public university in the Top 25. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took the top spot this year, followed by Stanford and Harvard universities.

Ohio State is No. 88.

The rankings assess university performance across four areas — research, teaching, employability and internalization — and calculate scores for each university based on a number of weighted factors, such as academic reputation, student-to-faculty ratio, citations per faculty and employer reputation.

► Related: Why two voters ranked U-M football No. 1

U-M received an overall grade of 86.40, with high marks in academic reputation, employer reputation and student/faculty ratio. It was ranked No. 30 overall last year and No. 23 in 2014.

"The University of Michigan, one of the world's leading public universities, has 28,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate/professional students from all 50 states and 121 countries," the QS rankings said. "Students may choose from over 240 undergraduate majors, over 90 master's programs and over 100 doctoral programs. Numerous research and study-abroad opportunities are offered at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. A wide variety of social, cultural and athletic activities are available. There is something for everyone here."

The QS World University Rankings, founded in 2004, ranks more than 900 universities and are "designed to help prospective students make informed comparisons of leading universities around the world."

Michigan State University ranked No. 160 in this year's rankings, a slight boost from No. 164 last year.

Contact Brian Manzullo: bmanzullo@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrianManzullo.

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