The list's validity really depends on who is doing the ranking. If it is
academia ranking academia as most of the lists are, it would be akin to people in a
mutual admiration society meeting deciding who is most admirable while ignoring how the outside world see them.
Where the rubber meet the road is what does the world think you are worth? How much will they pay you to work there?
Included to the OP's original list is
PayScale.com bachelors degree life-earning potential. They rank only US colleges so non-USA colleges are prefixed with dashes below.
--- 1: Oxford University
--- 2: Cambridge University
7 3: California Institute of Technology
10 3: Stanford University
3 5: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
9 6: Harvard University
2 7: Princeton University
--- 8: Imperial College London
70 9: University of Chicago
--- 10: ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
20 10: University of Pennsylvania
25 12: Yale University
100 13: Johns Hopkins University
43 14: Columbia University
81 15: University of California, Los Angeles
--- 16: University College London
22 17: Duke University
30 18: University of California, Berkeley
49 19: Cornell University
95 20: Northwestern University
You may think there is a mistake with Johns Hopkins but it is not. Last year, they were ranked 92. Having attending one of their (title reworded in my words) "why you should consider us" seminar, I would say that triple digits ranking is about right. Unlike their "general population", those majoring in pre-med and bio/med have separate admission requirements at least last year. So, it appears to me JHU's med/bio track is considerably stronger than the other schools at JHU. And, MD's are not bachelor degrees.
In those "why you should consider us" seminars, I found MIT to be in a class of its own. They consider their students as their products and they are keenly aware of their success or failure is judged purely by the consumers (employers) of their products (students).
To judge year to year variations, I use the military academies because some of their graduates' careers are well known. (Also because I know and worked with many academy grads).
5 USMA (US Military Academy, aka West Point), last year 6
6 USNA (US Naval Academy, aka Annapolis), last year 7
13 USAFA (US Air Force Academy), last year 8
So, if the market has a vote, their votes are rather different than the creator of the BBC's list!
Reference and for detail info on how payscale ranks their list:
http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report/bachelors