Boston has been ranked as the best city for college students in the U.S.
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Boston has been named the United States’s best student city in rankings released today by QS Quacquarelli Symonds, the London-based company that specializes in analysis of global higher education and rankings of different types of academic programs.
But, in what may come as something of a surprise, it was the only American city to crack the world’s top 10, placing ninth in a tie with Paris and Montreal. London held the #1 spot globally. It was followed by Munich (2nd) and Seoul and Tokyo, which shared third place.
The QS Best Student Cities Ranking combines independent data about a range of factors important to college students: affordability, quality-of-life, the standard of universities, and the views of previous students who have studied in that location.
To be eligible for the rankings, a city must have a population of at least 250,000 and be the home to at least two universities that rank in the QS World University Rankings. Those criteria eliminate from consideration many traditional American “college towns.”
In this year’s list, a total of 115 university cities are included, of which 15 are American.
The rankings are based on the following six metric categories:
1. Rankings: The number and quality of the city’s universities.
2. Desirability: The measure of the quality of life in a city, and the extent to which prospective students wish to study in that particular location.
3. Affordability: The affordability indicators cover several cost-of-living metrics, including average tuition and fees.
4. Employer Activity: This indicator group captures the extent to which a city’s university graduates are sought after by employers. It relies on over 75,000 responses to the QS Employer Survey, while also factoring in the levels of youth employment in a city.
5. Student Mix: The diversity and tolerance of the city including the presence of a large student population.
6. Student Voice: Recommendations by students who’ve studied in the city; based on the views of 95,747 survey respondents.
Further information on the methodology can be found here.
QS Top Student Cities In U.S.
1.Boston
2.New York
3.San Francisco
4.Los Angeles
5.Chicago
6.Atlanta
7.Philadephia
8.Washington, D.C.
9.Pittsburgh
10.San Diego
11.Durham
12.Seattle
13.Baltimore
14.Houston
15.Miami
QS Top Ten Student Cities Worldwide
1.London
2.Munich
3.Seoul and Tokyo (tied)
5.Berlin
6.Melbourne
7.Zurich
8.Sydney
9.Paris (tied)
9.Montreal (tied)
9.Boston (tied)
United States Ranking Factors
What accounts for the relatively poor showing of U. S. cities in this ranking? Three factors stand out.
- First, all but one of the U.S’s cities – Baltimore – has suffered a drop in QS’s Desirability score, which is the measure of a city’s quality of life and the extent to which prospective students want to study there.
- Second, American cities do not score well on affordability. America’s most affordable student city – once tuition and cost-of-living are accounted for – is San Diego (ranked 96th). The only other American cities to place among the top 100 for affordability are Pittsburgh (98th) and Atlanta (99th).
- Third, while America still can claim that it’s home to a number of world-class universities, it has recently declined somewhat on QS’s rankings of world universities. New York (6th), Boston (7th), Chicago (12th), Los Angeles (15th), and San Francisco (16th) rank among the top 20 on the Rankings metric, but 11 of the US’s 15 ranked cities are trending downwards on this indicator.
The bright spots for Boston were its Employer Activity score, where it placed 2nd, behind only Tokyo, and its Student Voice metric, where it was ranked 6th in the world.
It also placed well (7th) on QS rankings of its universities, accounted for largely by the presence of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Boston also was the highest ranked U.S. city (11th) on the student mix metric , a measure of the size and diversity of a city’s student population. Melbourne, Australia was the global leader on this indicator.
Commenting on the U.S, rankings, Ben Sowter, Director of Research at QS, said in a press release: “The United States retains one extraordinarily powerful pull factor, which is the plethora of world-class universities it can offer: five of the world’s twenty premier hubs for top-ranked universities are American. Its cities can – generally – combine the offer of a high-quality university education with excellent post-graduation employment prospects.”
But clearly the U.S. has its work cut out if it wants to move up in these ratings. As Sowter added, “… with Desirability dropping, it also appears as though the United States has still sustained some reputational damage among the global international student community over the past five years. A range of careful policy incentives, combined with a wholehearted strategic communications strategy, will be necessary to ensure that students remain incentivized to study in America to the same extent as was previously the case.”
