Australia is home to the world’s most liveable city, but it has failed to prove as impressive for students who think the Canadian city of Montreal is better than Melbourne, a survey has found.
However, the sporting capital of the world still beats other Australian cities, according to QS Best Student Cities ranking based on the opinions of 18,000 students from across the world.
The first-of-its-kind survey from QS - a global provider of specialist higher education and career information and solutions - ranks Melbourne as fifth best student city after Montreal (first), Paris (second), London (third) and Seoul (fourth).
The indicators used to finalise the list are Rankings, Affordability, Desirability, Employer Activity, Student Mix, and Student View.
While Melbourne tops the 'Student Mix' sub-indicator in the rankings, a relatively higher cost of living has put it behind other affordable cities, says Jack Moran PR Executive at QS (also known as Quacquarelli Symonds).
"Though Melbourne has numerous positive characteristics, cost-of-living and tuition fee levels naturally remain at the forefront of any international student’s mind, and our ranking necessarily reflects this."
Melbourne is fifth best student city after Montreal (first), Paris (second), London (third) and Seoul (fourth)
There is only one Australian city in the top 10, with Sydney not too far away at thirteenth spot.
Mr Moran maintains that students would still desire to complete their education in Melbourne or Sydney, but their actual experience favours the latter more than the former.
"When we look at the overall 'Student View' metric - which measures actual experience rather than preferred destination - Sydney performs slightly worse. This shouldn’t be seen as evidence of Sydney’s flaws, though. Rather, our data suggests that, while applicants are likely to want to study in a large city, their actual experience – as reported by them – falls slightly short of those quixotic expectations."
Brisbane is the third best city in the Australia (20th overall), followed by Canberra (22nd), Adelaide (44th), Perth (50th) and Gold Coast (78th)
But that does not mean that quality of education in these Australian cities is poor, says Mr Moran.
"These finding shouldn’t detract from the fact that the student experience in both Melbourne and Sydney remains a clearly above-average one."
As per the rankings, Brisbane is the third best among Australian cities (20th overall), followed by Canberra (22nd), Adelaide (44th), Perth (50th) and Gold Coast (78th).
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