London tops global student cities ranking for fifth consecutive year

The 11th edition of the QS Best Student Cities ranking has just been released and it again puts London at the top of the table of 160 destination cities around the world. To be ranked, a city must have a minimum population of 250,000 and be home to at least two universities in the QS World University Ranking.

The city rankings are based on survey responses from more than 110,000 prospective international students in 194 countries. As QS explains, there are six ranking factors, each of which is given an equal weight of 16.67% in the overall scoring:

"QS World University Rankings – A category aimed to reflect the collective performance of a city’s universities in the QS World University Rankings.

Student Mix – Which assesses the student make-up of a city such as on-campus diversity, both overall and from an international perspective.

Desirability – With a broad spectrum of datasets, this is used to indicate how desirable a destination is as a whole, ranging from safety to pollution.

Employer Activity – In this indicator, two factors are considered that are derived from the QS Graduate Employability Rankings, examining which cities are the most highly sought-after employment grounds for graduates.

Affordability – From tuition fees to the cost of living, the affordability indicator measures how cost-effective a city is most likely to be for prospective students and their families.

Student Voice – Using findings from our yearly QS International Student Survey, we incorporate the views that students have on their experience studying abroad."

Tokyo was the big gainer, moving up from the 7th spot last year to become the 2nd-ranked city in the 2024 table. While London captures the top spot for the fifth year running, Asia and Europe are well represented and Canada and the US each have three cities in the 20 as well.

The complete list of the top 20 ranked cities is as follows;

1. London
2. Tokyo
3. Seoul
4. Melbourne
5. Munich
6. Paris
7. Sydney
8. Berlin (tied for 8th spot)
9. Zurich (tied for 8th spot)
10. Boston
11. Toronto
12. Vienna
13. Montreal
14. Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe
15. Singapore
16. Edinburgh
17. New York
18. Vancouver
19. Lausanne
20. San Francisco

For additional background, please see:

• "London takes top spot (again) in ranking of student cities"
• "Latest ranking tables reveal continuing global shifts in economic and academic influence"