Buenos Aires crowned best Spanish-Speaking Student City

What matters when you are going to choice a city to study in? Undoubtedly a number of factors, varying if you are seeking to learn a whole new language, wanting a specific culture exchange or dreaming to enroll a certain subject. According to the higher education analysts QS, factors as quality of life, affordability, the number of top universities in the city, culture, diversity and the local jobs market had to be examined in order to single out the best world student cities. Also, a survey of 50 000 students telling about their experience and their willingness to remain in the city after graduating was considered when the cities was compared.

Best Iberia-American City

In the British company QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) ranking from May this year, the cosmopolitan city of Buenos Aires landed on a 25th place of 30 cities. For this reason, the Argentine capital, where “faded European grandeur” mixes with “Latin passion”, as written by Lonely Planet, beat both Barcelona and Madrid for the first time, climbing 17 levels from the same study last year. That made Buenos Aires the best Student City in Iberia-America meaning Latin America, Spain and Portugal, and therefore also the best city to study in in Latin America.

- Buenos Aires climbed first and foremost because of how the students evaluated their experience in the city and if they wanted to stay after graduating, Jack Moran in QS explained to the Argentine newspaper Clarín.

Notably, the Argentine capital came third best globally based on the student view indicator. In other words, there most be loads of students falling in love with this south American buzzing pampa city and its cultural and educational offers. Having said that, Buenos Aires biggest weakness was affordability being expensive, according to the survey without going in details on ongoing inflation and economic crisis.

Looking for “tourist students”

In 2017, more than 61 000 exchange students came to study in the Porteño atmosphere city with the objective of studying for at least one year, in a short or long higher education program. In addition, 1000 more young people came to travel or work. The Argentine government consider the students as “tourist students” and their goal is have 100 000 foreign students in town in 2021. The students left around 169 million dollars during their stay in 2017, according the Clarín. To reach the goal, the City of Buenos Aires released last year a program called “Study Buenos Aires” to make the exchange for foreign students even more attractive, offering welcome kits, a free phone number, transport cards and cultural experiences.

London number one

In the QS ranking, Paris dropped to a 5th place this year after several years being best city in the world to study. Second came Tokyo followed by Melbourne and Montreal. The very best city turned out to be London, thought the city ranked poorly on affordability.

Above all, the overseas students in the survey rated “quality of teaching” and whether the city make them feel “welcomed” as the two most important values.