Last year, too, UCT was the only university in South Africa, and Africa, to make it to the top 200 of the list.

The university is two positions up from last year, to 154, with 55.7 ranking points out of a possible 100.

The University of California also scored 55.7 points overall.

UCT was ranked as the best African university in last month's Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities.

Gerda Kruger, the executive director of communications and marketing at UCT, said yesterday: "We are happy with [our] consistency . a good performance in the rankings sends the message that South Africans can get a world-class education at home."

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology leaped from third last year to the top, displacing Cambridge and Harvard into second and third, respectively.

The difference in tuition fees between UCT and MIT was massive.

Undergraduate fees at UCT ranged between R32800 and R49200 for domestic students (and R65590 and R81980 for international students) while MIT fees were between R311540 and R326780 for undergraduates.