The most attractive cities for students

Recently the British consulting company Quacquarelli Symonds has published the next ranking of the best cities in the world for students for 2017. This ranking has been compiled by QS for the fourth year in a row, becoming more and more ambitious. Since 2014, the final list included 50 cities, last year there were 75 of them, and in the latest ranking we are presented with an overview of the 100 most attractive student cities in the world.

Cities were assessed according to such criteria as the multinational composition of students, the popularity of the city, the demand for graduates among employers, and financial affordability. This year, one more indicator has been added - the opinions of the students themselves. More than 18 thousand students and alumni from hundreds of universities in different cities of the world took part in the survey and shared their experiences.

Montreal has become the number one city in the world in terms of attractiveness for students, displacing Paris, which has held the palm for all previous years, to second place. Canada's multi-ethnic, bilingual, student-centered Cultural Capital of Culture performed excellently across all six assessment categories, including Student Opinion.

This has been a very successful year for the UK. London climbs two spots to third, Edinburgh comes in 18th, up from 33rd in 2016, and Manchester 23rd from 36. Despite concerns about the impact of Brexit, British cities have only become more popular andattractive to students. According to QS representatives, this may be due to the fall of the pound sterling, which made the British Isles more accessible to international students.

There is a rise in the cities of Germany, represented in the ranking by two cities - Berlin (moved up to sixth place) and Munich (ranked ninth). Meanwhile, the leading most attractive of the Asian cities - Seoul - soared up six points at once, taking the fourth place in the ranking.

Russia in the 2017 ranking is represented by 4 cities: Moscow occupiesthirty-ninth in the world, St. Petersburg - seventy-eighth, Tomsk and Novosibirsk - ninety-first and ninety-third, respectively. Moscow is ranked as the most populous capital in Europe with a staggering array of attractions, entertainment and intellectual development, where student life cannot be boring.

Despite its reputation as an expensive city, Moscow is ranked in the top 50 according to the criterion "Financial affordability". Tuition and food prices offset the high cost of living. For example, a Bik Mac in Moscow will cost US $ 2.05, while in Paris you will have to pay US $ 4.51 for it. Moscow has a high level of employer activity, there are seven universities included in the QS World University Rankings 2016-2017, including the leader of the ranking among Russian universities - Moscow State University.Lomonosov. According to the criterion "Student Opinion", the city has received many positive responses, in which a busy student life is noted.

In general, there are no unexpected open among the leaders of the ranking - most of the cities in the top twenty are always well-known thanks to their universities and student life. For example, Boston, which took the eighth position, despite the extremely high cost of living, is famous for at least two of its universities - it is in this city that Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are located. Some cities, however, ended up in relatively low positions, contrary to expectations and existing stereotypes: for example, Amsterdam, which annually attracts quite a lot of students from all over the world, took only 37th position due to the high cost of living. Many famous cities are at the tail of the rankings: Mumbai, New Delhi, Kiev and Rio de Janeiro are all outside the top eighty cities for students.

Svetlana Batalina