Berlin is the cheapest top-tier city in the world for international students, and Boston the most expensive, according to research by real estate adviser Savills. The news comes days before a [link="major conference on student accommodation"]http://www.theclassconference.org/[/link] in Amsterdam.
Berlin is the cheapest top-tier city in the world for international students, and Boston the most expensive, according to research by real estate adviser Savills. The news comes days before a major conference on student accommodation in Amsterdam.
An international student in the German capital can expect to spend just over $1,000 (€910) per month on combined living, accommodation and tuition expenses, whereas their counterpart in Boston needs to budget five times as much - $5,446.
In fact, US cities make up the top three most expensive destinations for students, with Boston followed by New York and San Francisco. London is the sixth most expensive city, with monthly costs of just under $4,000, with Bristol and Manchester in eighth and ninth place respectively.
Tuition fees
Savills’ World Student Housing report breaks down student costs into their constituent parts, revealing that across the 22 cities profiled, disparate accommodation costs and - most significantly - wide variations in tuition fees contribute to the affordability of a city.
'While a student in a US institution can expect to pay between $3,100 and $3,700 per month in tuition, their counterpart in Germany will only pay between $20-30,' said Matthias Pink, head of research Germany at Savills. In London, tuition fees account for the highest proportion of costs, but the city is also notable for having the highest monthly living costs of all those profiled at $754, followed by New York at $734 and Paris at $729.
Click here to download a PDF of the report from Savills
Real estate spend
The UK student housing market saw a record volume of investment in the first three quarters of 2015: $6.5 bn (€5.9 bn), compared to just over $3 billion in the US, having seen huge expansion in the last decade as the sector’s appeal to institutional investors has grown as a method of diversifying portfolios.
Investment into other student housing markets such as The Netherlands, Germany and Australia, has also risen in recent years, although these markets are still in their infancy compared to the US and UK. Germany saw record spend of €200 mln for the first half of 2015.
Class Conference
The costs and opportunities for students, universities, cities and international investors will be a key theme during The Class of 2020 annual conference in Amsterdam on 3 and 4 November.