Montreal Replaces Paris as World's Best Student City

Montreal has ended Paris's five-year run as the world's best student city, according to global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds. The fifth edition of its QS Best Student Cities Ranking, enumerates the world's top 100 urban student destinations.

This year's ranking features a 'Student View' indicator for the first time. Findings for the United Kingdom provide reassurance to those concerned about the potential effects of the UK's impending exit from the EU on its higher education sector.

Montreal's success is the latest of a series of propitious signs for a city beginning to escape a period of economic stagnation, following positive growth forecasts for 2017, and the recent announcement of its selection as the 'World's Most Intelligent City'. Its first-place ranking is also the highlight of a series of positive performances from Canadian cities: four of the country's five ranked cities improve their position. Other key findings include:

• Paris drops to second place, receiving reduced rank for Affordability and Desirability;
• London rises from fifth place to third place;
• The results suggest that UK cities remain excellent study destinations in the face of Brexit, with rises in QS's Affordability indicator a major contributor to all eight of its ranked cities improving their rank;
• Affordability issues adversely affect American cities: though Boston places eighth, ten of its twelve ranked cities drop;
• Australia's high cost-of-living and tuition fees are proving disadvantageous: all of its seven ranked cities drop, with Sydney plummeting from fourth to thirteenth, and Melbourne falling from second to fifth;
• Seoul is Asia's best student city, rising to 4th, followed by Tokyo (7th) , Hong Kong (11th) and Singapore (14th)
• Berlin rises to 6th; Munich (9th), and Vancouver (10th) complete the top 10.

 

Source: Top Universities

Over 18,000 students responded to QS's inaugural survey for this ranking, providing input about their own student experiences, and, for prospective students, the relative desirability of a city. The full ranking will be hosted here. The methodology can be viewed here.

Source: QS Quacquarelli Symonds