Paris Tops QS Best Student Cities Rankings 2014

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Nov 19, 2013, 05:00 ET

LONDON, November 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

QS Quacquarelli Symonds Logo (PRNewsFoto/QS Quacquarelli Symonds)

TopUniversities.com/StudentCities

#BestStudentCities

Paris has once again topped the annual QS Best Student Cities, a ranking of the world's top cities for students, released today on TopUniversities.com/StudentCities. London was two points behind, narrowly missing the top spot.

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The ranking, compiled by the team behind the annual QS World University Rankings, is based on five key pillars, which are then broken down into individual criteria: university rankings; student mix; quality of living; employer activity and affordability.

Two pre-requisites have been established to identify the cities evaluated in this exercise. The first is that each city must have a population of over 250,000, the second that it must be home to at least two ranked institutions in the QS World University Rankings. 98 cities in the world qualify on this basis, 50 has been published.

This year, the number of criteria has increased from 12 to 14, adding in the Globalization and World Cities Index (GaWC - compiled by The University of Loughborough) as an indicator for "quality of living" with a focus on the cities' influence in the global arena. The iPad Index (compiled by Commsec) is a proxy indicator for the affordability of consumer technology.

Thirty countries are represented with the most cities in the US (7), followed by Australia (6), Canada (3) and UK (3).

The new countries represented in the top 50 are Norway, with Oslo (48), New Zealand, with Auckland (18) and Czech Republic with Prague (45).

QS Best Student Cities 2014: Top 10

    RANK 2014 RANK 2012           CITY
        1         1              PARIS
        2         2              LONDON
        3        12            SINGAPORE
        4         6              SYDNEY
        5         4            MELBOURNE
        5         7              ZURICH
        7        19            HONG KONG
        8         3              BOSTON
        9        10             MONTREAL
       10        13              MUNICH

Source: QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2004-2013
TopUniversities.com/StudentCities

Ben Sowter, head of research at QS says: "With students becoming increasingly internationally-mobile, our aim is to widen students' horizons, highlighting the appeal of cities which they may not have previously considered as a potential study destination."

He continues: "QS Best Student Cities provides students with a complementary tool to the university-focused rankings. After all, a university experience is intrinsically influenced by the location, especially for international students."

NOTE: The 2013/14 QS Global 200 Business Schools Report - The rating of the schools of management preferred by international employers, will be published November 26^th on http://www.TopMBA.com. For the press info and interviews please contact the QS Press Office.

SOURCE QS Quacquarelli Symonds