London/Mumbai: Mumbai and New Delhi break into the world’s 100 best places to be a student, as per the fifth edition of the QS Best Student Cities ranking, released today (15 Feb 2017) by QS Quacquarelli Symonds. QS, compilers of the QS World University Rankings, has placed Montreal, a city of Canada, in the first place, which beat Paris, which was top ranked last year.

Two cities from India find place in the 100 best student cities 2017 with Mumbai 85^th and New Delhi 86^th spot. QS informed that these cities are benchmarked as their performance in six composite indicators: Affordability, Desirability, Student Mix, Rankings, Employer Activity, and, for the first time, Student View.

Indian cities have performed best in the affordability metric, which measures the cost-of-living in each city. New Delhi stands at 15^th place for this indicator, while Mumbai places 30^th spot. However, Mumbai has seen a sharp fall as in the previous edition of the ranking, it was the world’s second-most-affordable student city.

In the employer activity parameter, both cities have also performed comparatively better as Mumbai ranks 40^th while New Delhi is ten places behind it in 50^th.

Montreal is crowned as the best student city of the globe in 2017. The second-most populous of Canada has seen a sharp jump this year ranking (7^th place last year).  After losing top rank, Paris finds second place in 2017 while London rises to third spot from fifth position last year.

Seoul has emerged at the fourth position while Melbourne has secured fifth place. The other top ten student cities as per QS  Best Student Cities ranking are as followed: Berlin (6), Tokyo (7), Boston (8),  Munich (9),  Vancouver (10). The best city in the US in which to study is Boston, which places 8^th globally.

Both Indian cities have seen increases in their Desirability score. This index reflects the various aspects relates to quality-of-life, including pollution, corruption, and safety. Mumbai is 90^th, while New Delhi is 91^st.

Canadian cities perform well thanks to the recent political developments in the United States: four of their five ranked cities rise, and Vancouver (10^th) also places in the top 10.

QS has analysed 125 cities for this year’s ranking, publishing the top 100. This year ranking has expanded from 75 cities to 100.

The most important aspect of this year’s ranking is that the Student View  feature has been ranked for the first time. This metric is based on the survey responses of 18,000 students, who named the cities in which they would most like to study (Student Desirability), their willingness to remain in a city after graduation, and the quality of their experience there.

Mumbai secures 74^th for the Student View while New Delhi ranks 82^nd.  Canada has also performed strongly in this indicator, with Ottawa receiving the highest aggregate score.