Buenos Aires among the 25 best cities in the world for international students

Rankings

The QS Best Student Cities ranking highlights the city as the best in Latin America and Ibero-America, ahead of Madrid and Barcelona. Affordability, quality of universities and student experience in the city, the keys.

Buenos Aires is among the 25 best cities in the world for international students, according to a new edition of the QS Best Student Cities index, which evaluates 110 global cities. 

The global top 5 is headed by London, Munich, Seoul, Tokyo and Berlin. Buenos Aires reached its best mark since the ranking was published and ranked 22nd, above cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. In this new edition, the City climbed almost 10 places with respect to the 2019 measurement, and also consolidated its position as the best in Ibero-America and the best in Latin America. 

"The City was already consolidated as the best destination in the region and now it is beginning to position itself as one of the most competitive in the world for students. In addition to its positive impact on the visitor's economy, the arrival of international students increases the international prestige of Buenos Aires as a city for talent", highlighted Fernando Straface, Secretary General and International Relations of the City.

The ranking takes into account six categories, including universities ranked in international rankings, cost of living, the number of young people who express their desire to study in the city and stay once they graduate, how easy it is to get a job after graduating from university, diversity and internationalization of students, and students' perception of the destination. 

The City obtained a remarkable performance in the positioning of universities in rankings (in which the University of Buenos Aires was ranked for the seventh consecutive year as the best Spanish-speaking educational institution). Also, in terms of the quality of the experience of those who have recently studied in Buenos Aires. In this line, Study Buenos Aires, the Buenos Aires government program that works to improve the experience and attract international students, stands out. 

Ben Sowter, executive vice-president of QS, highlighted the affordability of Buenos Aires as a city for students. In this category, the city climbed 67 positions compared to the last edition. "In a global context in which young people are increasingly concerned about the high costs associated with their university studies, the remarkable positioning of Buenos Aires in this area provides a competitive potential for attracting talent to the city's institutions. However, it is not only this that is noteworthy. The worldwide positioning of its universities in rankings guarantees those who choose Buenos Aires an outstanding yet affordable education".

A plan to reactivate student arrivals in the post-pandemic period

With more than 30 universities in the city of Buenos Aires and the AMBA, the Buenos Aires government is working on a comprehensive plan to reactivate the arrival of international students. The goal is to gradually recover the record of 2019, when Buenos Aires received 85,861 international students who left $26,401.4 million, between accommodation expenses and family visits, according to a report by the UBA. 

The strategy includes a digital positioning campaign that has already begun to be implemented in Madrid, Barcelona, Medellin, Lima, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia, Montevideo, Santiago de Chile, Asuncion, the main cities of origin of young people coming to Buenos Aires. 

Likewise, in order to open new international markets, the government of Buenos Aires and the Argentine Embassy in China organized a day of exchange between 18 Argentine universities and 26 universities in 13 Chinese cities to promote Buenos Aires as a destination for students. There are about 94 Chinese universities that have Spanish teaching centers and approximately 20 thousand Chinese students begin their studies each year, half of whom choose Spain to study. In order to expand its reach to this market, the City is already implementing a positioning campaign in Chinese social networks, from where it will seek to compete with other Latin American destinations. 

In addition, Buenos Aires seeks to attract 22 thousand digital nomads, a segment of visitors that spends more on average per stay and that thanks to teleworking can settle in any destination. To this end, the City is working with the national government on a special visa that will enable them to reside in the country for up to one year.

At the same time, the government of the City of Buenos Aires seeks to recover the more than 10,000 national students who used to come to the City every year. To this end, it launched a federal exchange program, with 50 scholarships for young people from more than 200 careers to carry out academic exchanges in the cities of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza, Santa Fe, Corrientes, Mar del Plata, Concepción del Uruguay, Neuquén, Cipolletti, Viedma, Bariloche and General Roca. In addition, the government of the City of Buenos Aires has already regulated the Promotion Regime for Student Residences, which grants tax benefits for the construction and remodeling of university residences located in this neighborhood.  

Regarding the plan, the Head of Government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, commented: "We are convinced that our human capital and our academic offer are one of the most important assets to recover the vitality of Buenos Aires. For this reason, we set as a goal for 2023 to recover the more than 100,000 students that year after year came to the City; and we will continue working to boost the sectors of the economy linked to knowledge and to continue making Buenos Aires one of the main attractors of talent from the hand of national, international and digital nomad students."