Delhi 86th among top 100 student cities: QS ranking

MUMBAI: Mumbai, the second most affordable city in the world for students till 2016, has dropped to the 30th position this year. Delhi, on the other hand, ranks way higher at 15, states a report by Quacquarelli Symonds, compilers of the QS World University Rankings.
The organisation published the 2017 list of the `top 100 student cities in the world' on Wednesday . Mumbai and Delhi rank 85th and 86th in the list, respectively .

Paris, which had topped the list since it was first compiled in 2012, was replaced by Montreal in Canada for the first time. London, ranked fifth last year, has moved up to the third position. Melbourne, on the other hand, dropped to the fifth position from second.The top five cities in Asia include Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe.

Where Mumbai and Delhi managed to get higher ranks was in “employer activity“.

A city's performance is ranked on six composite indicators -affordability , desirability , student mix (international students), university ranking, employer activity and, for the first time, views of students, as in, which city would they like to study in and their willingness to continue living there.

Although an official QS statement shows that Mumbai and Delhi have seen an increase in their desirability score, these cities are still at the bottom. Mumbai is placed at the 90th position and Delhi 91th. The desirability score takes into account the quality of life, including pollution, corruption and safety .

In its inaugural rankings for 2012, QS had published the rankings for the top 50 cities. Later, it began to publish rankings of 75. This year, it has expanded the list to 100.

In 2013, Mumbai was ranked 61 and Delhi 69. Apoorva Palkar, educationist and convenor of the Maharashtra taskforce to bring about internationalisation in higher education, said, “Mumbai is increasingly seen as a preferred destination for education by foreign students despite its shortcomings. Tuition fees here are more affordable than in European institutes. However, the cost of living is high.“