Top 10 Places to Study Abroad 2024 - Rankings Rationale

At educations.com, we strive to help students all over the world find the right education. We know international students have special considerations when choosing a university and program. Our annual Top 10 Places to Study Abroad rankings are a major step towards helping them find their ideal study abroad destination!

In April 2023, we conducted a survey* of nearly 24,000 students from more than 230+ countries and asked about their top reasons for studying abroad. This resulted in a list of factors they considered most important, and we use these factors as the framework for our rankings**.

This is the fifth annual ranking we have published, and to compare how the importance of the seven factors has changed since last year, check the 2023 rankings and rationale page.

These seven factors are:

1. To access higher-quality teaching
2. To achieve my career goals
3. To develop myself personally
4. To experience a new culture or lifestyle
5. To make new friends or for professional networking
6. To learn a new language
7. To have an 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, 17.67% of students surveyed said studying abroad was important to personal development. Hence, the ‘develop myself personally’ factor makes up 17.67% of each country's overall score.

Each factor's score comprises sub-scores based on external data sources (listed below). Each sub-score was averaged out and summed 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 countries with the highest final score are the top 10 places for each list.

Data sources and score weighting

1. To access higher-quality teaching

• Score weighting: 31.55%
• Data sources: 
  • Best countries to study abroad - U.S. News 2023
  • University Impact Rankings - Times Higher Education
  • World University Rankings - Times Higher Education

2. To achieve career goals

• Score weighting: 25.39%
• Data sources: 
  • Expat Insider 2023 - InterNations
  • The World Bank 2023
  • Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2022
  • Best Countries to Start a Business – U.S. News
  • Unemployment Rates - OECD 2023

3. To develop myself personally

• Score weighting: 17.67%
• Data sources: 
  • World Happiness Report 2023
  • Life Satisfaction - OECD Better Life Index
  • Quality of Life Index - Numbeo

4. To experience a new culture or lifestyle

• Score weighting: 13.14%
• Data sources: 
  • Cultural Influence sub-rankings - U.S. News
  • Heritage sub-rankings - U.S. News
  • Good for tourism sub-rankings – U.S. News

5. To make new friends or for professional networking

• Score weighting: 6.07%
• Data sources: 
  • Friendliest Countries Ranking - World Population Review
  • The Legatum Prosperity Index - Legatum Institute (The Social Capital pillar)
  • Leading countries and territories in the Travel & Tourism Development Index– Statista (International Openness)
  • Expat Insider - InterNations (Ease of settling in, finding friends)

6. To learn a new language

• Score weighting: 4.00%
• 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. To have an adventure

• Score weighting: 2.17%
• Data sources: 
  • Women’s empowerment and gender equality - Human Development Report 2023
  • Adventure rankings - U.S. News
  • Most Visited Countries – World Population Review 2023
  • The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report - World Economic Forum (Adventure competitiveness)

*International Student Survey conducted in Spring 2023

**The analysis for the rankings takes into consideration our data, external data sources and current international world affairs where relevant