12 Jan Australia Scores Twice in top-10 cities for foreign students
Australia offers arguably the most desirable digs for foreign students, with its cities dominating the top levels of the latest international league table.
In a reflection of growing value as its dollar tumbles against other world currencies, Australia was the only country with more than one top-10 entry in the latest list of the best student cities.
Melbourne maintained second spot in the table, which was compiled by rankings house QS, with only Paris deemed a better student destination. And Sydney held on to fourth spot despite being passed by Tokyo.
Australia is also the only country with four top-20 entries, with Canberra ranked 17th and Brisbane tied 18th. The nearest contender was Canada with three entries — Montreal (seventh) and Toronto and Vancouver (tied 13th).
Adelaide (26th) and Perth (35th) also made the list. They were joined by the Gold Coast, which debuted at 69th after QS expanded this year’s list from 50 to 75 cities.
While traditional heavyweights the US and Britain have more entries overall — 11 and eight respectively — they are clustered towards the bottom of the newly expanded list. All British cities apart from Coventry and all US cities apart from Baltimore were rated less student-friendly than last year.
London slipped from third to fifth spot, while the top US destination — Boston — tumbled from sixth to 13th. By contrast, all Australian cities maintained or improved their positions.
The list is based on the concentration number of high-ranking institutions, the student mix, city desirability, employer activity and affordability.
Meanwhile, the Group of Eight has dominated the Australian entries in yet another QS league table — even though all but one of the local sandstones refused to participate.
The University of Sydney was the top local institution in the pilot QS Graduate Employability Rankings, debuting in 14th spot.
It was followed by UNSW (19th), Monash (30th) and the University of Western Australia (49th).
Sydney University had been the only local sandstone prepared to supply data for the new league table. The rest of the Go8 declined, citing concerns about how QS would use the information.
QS said universities had been included in the ranking only if they elected to supply data or if enough public information was available.
Other well-placed universities included RMIT, Macquarie, Wollongong and Queensland University of Technology, all of which made the top 100. Curtin, Newcastle, Swinburne and University of Technology Sydney made the top 200.
Author:
- THE AUSTRALIAN
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