Top 10 Places to Study Abroad 2023 - Rankings Rationale

At educations.com, our mission is to help everyone in the world find the right education. We know that international students have special considerations when choosing an ideal university and program, and our Top 10 Places to Study Abroad rankings are a major step towards helping them find their ideal study abroad destination!

In 2022, we conducted a survey of over 20,000 students from around the world and asked about their top reasons for studying abroad. This resulted in the list of factors they considered most important which was then used as the framework for our rankings.

This is the fifth ranking of this kind, and to compare how the importance of the seven factors has changed since last year, check the 2022 rankings and rationale page.

These seven factors are:

1. High-quality teaching
2. Achieving career goals
3. Personal development
4. Culture and lifestyle
5. Opportunities to network or make new friends
6. Language learning
7. Adventure

We then assigned the factors their corresponding quantitative metric (or weight) according to how many students selected that factor as important in their decision-making process. For example, 17.25% of students surveyed said it was important to experience a new culture or lifestyle. Hence, the 'to experience a new culture or lifestyle' factor makes up 17.25% of each country's overall score.

Each factor's score is made up of sub-scores based on a selection of external data sources (listed below). Each of these sub-scores was averaged out and added together to create a final score for that factor.

From there, the factors were weighted and added together to create a final score for each country. The top 10 places for each list are the countries with the highest final score.

View 2023 rankings by region

Data sources and score weighting

1. High-quality teaching

• Score weighting: 55.85%
• Data sources:
  • World Population Review
  • Quality of the education system rankings - CEOWorld Magazine
  • University Impact Rankings - Times Higher Education
  • World University Rankings - Times Higher Education

2. Achieving career goals

• Score weighting: 24.39%
• Data sources:
  • Expat Workers - HSBC
  • Global Entrepreneurship Monitor - US News
  • Best Countries for Business rankings - US News
  • Unemployment Rate - International Monetary Fund

3. Personal development

• Score weighting: 4.60%
• Data sources:
  • World Happiness Report - Sustainable Development Solutions Network
  • Life Satisfaction - OECD Better Life Index

4. Culture and lifestyle

• Score weighting: 5.80%
• Data sources:
  • Cultural Influence sub-rankings - US News
  • Heritage sub-rankings - US News
  • The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report - World Economic Forum (Cultural resources & business travel opportunities, tourist services infrastructure)
  • Best Countries for Tourism - US News

5. Opportunities to network or make new friends

• Score weighting: 3.78%
• Data sources:
  • Friendliest Countries Ranking - World Population Review
  • The Legatum Prosperity Index - Legatum Institute (The Social Capital pillar)
  • The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report - World Economic Forum (International openness)
  • Expat Insider - InterNations (Ease of finding friends)

6. Language learning

• Score weighting: 2.50%
• Data sources:
  • World's Most Multilingual Countries rankings - Ethnologue
  • Foreign Language Training - U.S. Department of State (Language difficulty)
  • Countries by Languages - Nations online (Number of countries with these as official languages)

7. Adventure

• Score weighting: 3.08%
• Data sources:
  • Adventure rankings - U.S. News
  • Best countries to live - UNDP - Human Development Report
  • Most visited countries - World Population Review
  • The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report - World Economic Forum (Adventure competitiveness)

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