Our study uses a qualitative comparative analysis method in order to assess the impact of national accreditation schemes and also other relevant features of the higher education systems of 20 OECD countries on quality of the higher education sector measured by world rankings of national higher education systems. The analysis shows that higher education systems with accreditation system focused mainly on inputs, lacking involvement of professionals in the accreditation process, having a single body granting accreditation for the respective type of institution or degree, not having English as an official language, and not allowing public universities to charge tuition fees do worse in the higher education system rankings.