
A global student review website named Gainesville as one of the top 30 best student cities in the world.
The Campus Advisor, a global student review website that allows users to rate and review their university, academic staff, campus facilities, accommodation, and other areas related to their university life experiences, ranked Gainesville at No. 19 in its worldwide survey released on Monday.
According to The Campus Advisor press release, over the past year 12,164 students were surveyed on cities they live in while attending a university and asked to rate on a 1-5 scale student friendliness, cost of living, nightlife, public transportation, amenities and safety.
“I surveyed over 2,000 college and high school students,” The Campus Advisor’s Brian Moran said in an email interview. “They were given a list of questions and asked to select those which they thought were most relevant for someone researching cities to live in while attending college. From that, I came up with the specific categories that we use to rank the cities.”
Gainesville received an overall score of 4.22 out of 5 and scored best in student friendliness at 4.72. The following is a breakdown of the rating scores:
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Student Friendliness: 4.72
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Cost of Living: 4.00
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Nightlife: 4.28
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Public Transport: 4.17
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Amenities: 4.29
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Safety: 3.85
Moran said he surveyed students from 2,335 universities worldwide and 908 universities in the United States.
The Campus Advisor launched in January 2019.
“Initially we were collecting ratings and reviews for colleges and dorms,” Moran said. “In October 2020 we started collecting ratings and reviews for cities. The ‘30 Best Student Cities in the World 2022’ is the first ranking list we’ve released specifically focused on cities.”
The complete top 30 list can be found here. In summary, the top five best cities in the world are:
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Melbourne, Australia
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Newcastle, United Kingdom
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Seoul, South Korea
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Vienna, Austria
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Montreal, Canada
The Campus Advisor found 93 percent of UF students surveyed recommended the college with an overall 4.4 out of 5 score based on academic staff, campus facilities, area of study, administrative staff, sports facilities and social scene.
Santa Fe College received a 3.8 out of 5 score with 100 percent of the students surveyed saying they would recommend attending SF.
“We’ll be releasing the ‘Best Student Cities in the World’ ranking on a yearly basis,” Moran said. “But we’ll be releasing other rankings throughout the year. For example, next we’ll be releasing the ‘50 Best Universities in the World’ next month.”
According to the release, The Campus Advisor’s mission of ranking the best student cities in the world allows future students to make informed decisions about what university and community will be the best fit going into the next chapter of their lives.
In recent months, U.S. News and World Report ranked UF No. 5 in its list of top public universities and recognized UF Online as the No. 1 online bachelors degree program.
On the flip side, The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a watchdog group monitoring free speech on college campuses, placed UF on its 11th edition of the “10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech” on Feb. 7.