The World’s 15 Best College Cities

When students decide where they’ll be continuing their education, they shouldn’t just consider the school itself: The city (or town) where the college or university is located matters, too, as it’ll be their home for the next four years.

To figure out the world’s most student-friendly cities, researchers at Immerse Education conducted a study that analyzed 37 popular university locations. The list isn’t just limited to the United States—people hoping to pursue higher education overseas (or even just enjoy a semester studying abroad) will have plenty of options to consider.

Immerse Education’s research focused on various factors that affect a student’s quality of life in any given place. The company looked at the number of restaurants, cafes, and bars/pubs in a city; the number of art galleries, art museums, and history museums; the quality of green spaces; the global index quality of life scores; and safety index scores.

Here are the 15 college towns and cities that came out on top.

The Best Cities for College Students

Rank	City	Country	No. of restaurants/ cafes/ bars/ pubs per 10,000 people	No. of art galleries and history museums per 10,000 people	Quality of life score	Safety index score	Quality of green space
1	Ithaca	United States	96.2	4.8	147.4	68.5	-
2	Princeton	United States	44.4	1	206.2	82.6	90
3	Amsterdam	Netherlands	33	1.3	196.8	71.4	83.9
4	Edinburgh	Scotland, UK	35.2	1.3	184.9	68.8	81.8
5	Stanford	United States	12.6	5.5	166.2	50	51
6	Munich	Germany	20.85	0.34	193.3	79	85.5
7	Copenhagen	Denmark	16.52	0.60	194.4	74.1	81.3
8	Cambridge	United States	37.68	1.18	172	68.4	94.4
9	Madison	United States	30.82	0.98	183.9	65.1	86.2
10	Zurich	Switzerland	12.92	0.30	193	77.7	69.8
11	Lausanne	Switzerland	16	0.4	194	73.2	85.9
12	Ann Arbor	United States	41	1.6	140.6	77.2	87.5
13	Tokyo	Japan	26.6	0.2	178.9	76.1	62.4
14	San Francisco	United States	64.8	2.6	153.6	38.0	62.5
15	Austin	United States	33.4	0.9	178.2	57.7	74.4

According to the study’s findings, Ithaca, New York—home to both Ithaca College and Cornell University—is the best university city in the world. It ranked much higher than the rest in terms of restaurants, bars, and museums per 10,000 people; it also had a solid safety index score.

Princeton came in second due to its winning combination of a high safety score and an extremely high ranking in the quality of its green spaces. Amsterdam, which claimed the third spot, had a very balanced set of stats—reasonably high quality of life and safety index scores, plenty of social spaces, and decent greenery.

Of course, there are several other factors to consider when choosing a school. You may be more interested in the best colleges and universities—regardless of their location—or you might prefer a college that’ll get you the highest return on your investment.

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