Arya News - According to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Best Student Cities Rankings 2027, Kuala Lumpur ranks 15th in the world and eighth for the strength of its universities.
PETALING JAYA – Kuala Lumpur is still one of the top 15 cities in the world that students choose to come to study in.
According to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Best Student Cities Rankings 2027, Kuala Lumpur ranks 15th in the world and eighth for the strength of its universities.
Kuala Lumpur’s two strongest indicators are also its two biggest results, and both fall on the measures Malaysia’s international strategy to attract students depends on.
It climbs two places to eighth in the world in the University Rankings category, with its score up 1.8 points to 76.0, thanks to 12 of its institutions being ranked in the QS World University Rankings 2027.
It also climbed two places to 13th for Employer Activity, a measure of graduate demand among recruiters.
While Malaysia’s only ranked city slips three places from 12th, with its overall score down 2.3 points to 88.0, it remains eight places higher than in 2025 and is Southeast Asia’s second city behind Singapore at 11th.
The sharpest movement in the city’s indicators is a fall of 9.1 points in Affordability, taking it down nine places to 42nd with a score of 63.9.
Affordability scores, which are calculated using tuition fees with Numbeo’s cost of living index and The Economist’s Big Mac index of purchasing power, also fell across most of the ranking this year, at 94 of those 141 cities.
In the Student Voice category — based on student opinions about inclusivity, friendliness, transport, culture, and more — Kuala Lumpur placed =73rd globally, a dip of four spots from last year.
For Desirability, which combines QS’s global survey of prospective students with a wide range of data sources — including pollution levels, safety, TripAdvisor ratings, and corruption indices — Kuala Lumpur climbs eight ranks to place 83rd, representing its weakest performance across the indicators.
QS senior vice president Ben Sowter said the data shows where the pressure lies.
“Affordability fell 9.1 points in a single year, and affordability is not a detail for Malaysia; it is the offer.
“Student Voice fell too. The country is targeting 250,000 international students by 2030 from around 137,000 today, while raising the salary thresholds that determine whether those graduates can stay,” he said in a statement today (July 21).
“Recruitment ambition and graduate opportunity need to move together,” he added.
Meanwhile, no single city tops the entire ranking. Each of the six categories that make up the QS Best Student Cities 2027 is led by a different city.
Seoul, Korea, with its 23 ranked universities, leads in University Rankings, while Melbourne, Australia, with its diverse student population, leads in Student Mix.
Scoring a perfect 100 points is Tokyo, Japan, for Employer Activity; Amsterdam, Holland, for Desirability and Berlin, Germany, for Student Voice indicators.
Finally, Delhi, India, tops the ranking for affordability, where its international tuition fees average around USD2,700 (RM11,048) a year.
The (QS) Best Student Cities Rankings 2027 assesses cities across six categories: the quality of their universities, the desirability of the city, employer interest, affordability, the mix of the student body and the views of students themselves.
The city must also have a population above 250,000 and at least two universities in the QS World University Rankings 2027.
Of the 150 cities that meet these criteria, 61 are in Europe, 52 in Asia Pacific, 18 in North America, 12 in the Middle East and Africa and seven in Latin America.
The full 12th edition of the rankings, released today, can be found at https://www.topuniversities.com/city-rankings