THE University of Southampton has dropped out of the world's top 100 higher education institutions, according to an influential list released today.

The Highfield-based university has slipped from 90th place in last year's Times Higher Education World University Rankings to joint 127th this time.

It is tied in that position with Arizona State University in the USA, and Queen Mary, University of London.

The California Institute of Technology has been ranked as the world's best university this year, overtaking fellow American institution, Harvard.

Oxford University is the highest-placed British institution, which is placed fourth, two spots ahead of rival Cambridge.

Universities are ranked according to scores for teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook, before being given an overall score out of 100.

Southampton scored 49.9, while Caltech in first place scored 94.8.

Southampton was ranked 46th in the "international outlook" section, reflecting a high number of foreign students and staff on campus, as well as research papers published with international co-authors.

There are a total of 32 UK institutions featuring in the overall top 200 list, compared to 75 from the USA. Germany and Holland are the next-best performing countries, with 12 each.

But the survey reveals that British and Swiss universities offer the best value for money higher education systems, based on public spending.