QS Best Student Cities ranking: Joint 68^th

A new entry in the QS Best Student Cities in 2019, Stuttgart (pronounced Schtutt-gart) is the capital and largest city of Baden-Württemberg in south-west Germany, and the sixth-largest city in the country as a whole.

Stuttgart is known as the ‘cradle of the automobile’ due to its key role in the development and manufacture of cars, and many major companies have their headquarters here, such as Porsche, Bosch, Mercedes-Benz, Daimler AG, and Dinkelacker.

Stuttgart’s area is one of Germany’s strongest industrial regions, making it an ideal choice for engineering and technology students who may wish to stay and work in Germany after their studies.

However, Stuttgart is far more than just an industrial city, and, as its tourist slogan says, the city ‘offers more’. The cityscape is made up of a range of hills, some of which have vineyards, as well as parks and valleys. Fantastic views of the city and surrounding area can be had at the viewing platform at the TV Tower, and there are many landmarks to explore in and out of Stuttgart, such as Ludwigsburg Palace, Wilhelma Zoo and Botanical Garden and the Württemberg Mausoleum.

Stuttgart also has a rich cultural heritage, with concert halls, sports arenas and Broadway-style musical theaters. It also hosts the world-famous annual Cannstatter Volksfest, a beer festival and traveling funfair, second only in size to Munich’s Oktoberfest.

Unfortunately, universities in Baden-Württemberg recently re-introduced tuition fees for non-EU students – however the new fees are still far lower than you’d pay in study destinations such as the UK or US, at €1,500 per semester (equivalent to US$1,670 at the time of writing). Despite this, Stuttgart earns the highest score for affordability of Germany’s three entries in the ranking (at 17^th), with reasonable costs of living for a high quality of life.

Are you currently studying in Stuttgart? You can share your thoughts in our student survey here, or in the comments below.

Internationally ranked universities in Stuttgart

More about Stuttgart

To find out how each of the above categories is calculated, view the methodology.

QS Best Student Cities ranking: 64^th  

Scotland’s third-largest city after Glasgow and Edinburgh, Aberdeen is nicknamed ‘The Granite City’ for its frequent use of local gray granite across its buildings. A historical port city, Aberdeen drops nine places this year to rank 64^th in the world.

While Aberdeen’s position in the north-east makes it quite remote, it’s also very well-connected to other cities in the UK, with extensive air and rail links. Big enough to get the ‘big city’ study experience and have plenty to do, but compact and not so large that it’s overwhelming, Aberdeen offers the ideal spot for mixing vibrant city life with exploring miles of nearby countryside and coastlines.

Aberdeen is the educational center of northeastern Scotland, and there’s a large population of students (about 22,500) from a variety of nationalities – 132 are represented at Robert Gordon University, which helps to give the city its strong score for student mix in our best cities ranking.

While the city can’t be called cheap to live in compared to other cities around the world, it does have the best score for affordability in the UK, thanks to lower living costs than other British destinations. For example, the average cost of accommodation (a one-bedroom apartment) in Aberdeen is £595 per month, compared to Manchester, where the average cost is £781.

Aberdeen’s frequently been ranked as one of the happiest and most livable cities in the UK, and, while it’s colder than much of the rest of the UK, it’s also one of Scotland’s sunniest cities.

The city’s also been praised for its flourishing economy, with Paymentsense recently naming Aberdeen as the best place in the UK to launch a business start-up, thanks to its strong roots in industries such as fishing, textiles, and shipbuilding. 

Aberdeen’s been well-received by its current students, who commented in our survey that “Everything is very student friendly” and it has a “Friendly atmosphere, very low crime rate, and pleasant weather”. One student noted “you feel safe wherever you are.”

Are you currently studying in Aberdeen? Share your experience.

Internationally ranked universities in Aberdeen

More about Aberdeen

 To find out how each of the above categories is calculated, view the methodology.

Sponsored by the Kogod School of Business

Ever wondered what it takes to change the world? Well, apparently, the answer is a business degree. A study published by HBR found that almost a third of the top 100 names on the Fortune 500 list have a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree.

Along with degrees in engineering, MBAs are the most commonly held qualifications by the world’s biggest earners, people who are at the forefront of new innovations and world-changing ideas.

While it’s entirely possible to climb up the ladder of success without a degree from a top-ranked business school, it can certainly help. Here are five extraordinary men and women who went to business school and made profound lasting changes to the world. Think you can follow in their footsteps?

Sheryl Sandberg

Photo taken by cellanr in April 2013

Primarily known for her work with Google and Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg graduated from Harvard Business School in 1995, after a brief stint as research assistant at the World Bank, where she worked on healthcare projects in India tackling AIDS, leprosy and blindness. This experience inspired her to attend business school.

Writing for Newsweek in 2008, Sandberg said: “During my first trip to India, I was taken on a tour of a village leprosy home, where I saw people in conditions that I would not have thought possible. I promised myself that going forward, I would work only on things that really mattered. That's why I ended up in business school. I realized that I needed a better understanding of how organizations work—and don't work—to create real change.

“I wasn't crazy about business. In fact, I never thought I would work at a for-profit company. But learning how to harness the power of large organizations appealed to me.”

After her MBA, she worked as chief of staff for the secretary of the Treasury department under President Bill Clinton, and then joined Google as their vice president of global online sales and operations. In 2007, she became Facebook's chief operating officer.

Carlos Carrazana

Image copyright American University

Carlos Carrazana is the chief operating officer and executive vice president at Save the Children. He started working at the nonprofit in 2012 after spending four years working to eradicate pediatric HIV infections and pediatric AIDS at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

Carrazana actually began his career in banking, serving as vice president for Latin American and African programs at First Union Bank and relationship manager and senior corporate officer at Riggs National Bank. Pivoting to a career in global development in 1999, Carrazana told the Latin Post in 2015: “In my mid-thirties, I realized I wanted to do something totally different”.

Carrazana used the knowledge and transferable skills he gained as part of his MBA at American University’s Kogod School of Business to make a lasting impact. In 2016, Save the Children worked in 120 countries, reaching 157 million children, including more than 56 million directly.

Lisa Leslie

Photo taken by Angela George, 2010

The four-time Olympic gold medal winner and two time women’s NBA champion was the first woman to slam-dunk in WNBA history and the first to score 6,000 career points. Not satisfied with her domination in the sporting world, Lisa Leslie began taking business classes in the off-season of 2006. Three years later, when she retired at the age of 37, she also obtained an MBA from the University of Phoenix.

Her desire to become a businesswoman goes back to the very start of her career when she first began earning significant sums of money. She told a reporter: “I thought, 'I need to go back to school and figure out more of a business perspective of what I'm doing and how I should invest my money.'"

Off the basketball court, Lisa Leslie has been working as a sports commentator for NBC, ABC and Fox Sports Net since obtaining her MBA and is also a part-owner of the Los Angeles Sparks. Today, she is worth US$5 million.

Tim Cook

Photo taken by Valery Marchive, January 2009

After graduating from Duke University with an MBA in 1988, Tim Cook worked at Intelligent Electronics for a while and later became Vice President for Corporate Materials at Compaq. However, he left the company for Apple in 1998, after Steve Jobs offered him the role of chief operating officer. Apple was a struggling company at the time and, in his commencement speech at Auburn University, Cook stressed that in leaving Compaq for Apple, he took a leap of faith.

He said: “Any purely rational consideration of cost and benefits lined up in Compaq's favor, and the people who knew me best advised me to stay at Compaq...No more than five minutes into my initial interview with Steve, I wanted to throw caution and logic to the wind and join Apple. My intuition already knew that joining Apple was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work for the creative genius, and to be on the executive team that could resurrect a great American company." This goal has been well and truly achieved. In 2017, Apple came third on the Fortune 500 list, with profits nearing the US$45,700 million mark.

Mary T. Barra

Public domain, 2014

It’s hard not to feel inspired by the rags to riches success story of Mary T. Barra, the Michigan-born daughter of a bookkeeper and a machinist who worked her way to the top of a Fortune 500 company. Barra joined General Motors at the age of 18 and held a variety of roles in the company while pursuing a degree in engineering from Kettering University (then known as the General Motors Institute) and an MBA from Stanford University under a General Motors fellowship.

Believe it or not, being the first female CEO of General Motors, a business worth US$58.22 billion, is the least of her accomplishments: she pushed GM to develop the Chevy Bolt EV, the first electric car to achieve a range of 200 miles. What does she see as her next challenge? Driverless cars.

How will you make a mark on the world like these five famous faces? A degree from the Kogod School of Business at the American University could give you the business training and contacts you need to realize your dreams.

在过去的几年里，QS LEAP提供了免费的在线备考，供世界各地的学生在申请大学之前使用，今年早些时候，它获得了两个同行评审奖 "年度最佳在线备考平台 "和 "最佳教育网络研讨会系列"。

继这些成功之后，我们采访了产品负责人Soumik Ganguly，了解了该平台与GMAT专家的联系是如何帮助候选人申请大学的。

图：QS Leap团队与他们的奖

恭喜QS LEAP最近取得的成功。对于还没有使用过它的人来说，QS LEAP能为他们做些什么呢？

QS LEAP提供了有指导性和学习性的自适应考试准备，任何希望进行国际流动的人，或者有志于申请接受GMAT、GRE、SAT和LSAT考试成绩的一流大学的本科、研究生或MBA项目的人都可以自由访问。

它的创立是为了确保任何能够上网的人现在都可以通过世界上最先进的备考平台之一进行备考，覆盖所有的学习基础，并由致力于同样愿景的导师定期授课。几乎所有使用过QS LEAP完整备考的人都在最后的考试中取得了很高的分数。

学生还可以使用QS LEAP做什么？

除了个人备考，QSLEAP还有免费班级的形式进行同步备考。这些班级都是由优秀的辅导老师来授课，考生如果需要在某一专题的特定领域进行投入，可以参加这些课程。然后，我们会对这些考生的进展情况进行跟踪，这也是对学习效果的一种衡量。

我们还在QS LEAP生态系统中加入了一些灵巧的工具，这些工具可以帮助候选人进行选校、入学咨询和申请建设。我们的申请组合可以让候选人看到他们在其他有意申请同一项目的人中的竞争排名，查看他们的匹配率，并监控他们在一定时间内的进展。这使他们能够做出更好的申请选择。

QS LEAP的哪些内容最受学生欢迎？

备考无疑是最受欢迎的元素。渐渐地，我们为候选人开设的免费班级有很多需求和良好的反馈。招生网络讲座也有很多人参加，因此为我们的注册用户带来了价值。

QS LEAP最近在2018年第八届印度教育奖和Edtechreview上获得了奖项。这些都是为了什么，这些奖项对QS LEAP的用户有什么积极影响？

Edtechreview的奖项是年度最佳在线备考平台，是对我们学习框架和成果的认可。我们的第二个奖项是本月早些时候在印度教育奖上获得的最佳教育网络研讨会系列奖，是对我们一直以来免费班级的认可。

这些奖项激励我们保持执着的专注，通过更好的学习体验和成果为候选人创造价值。为此，我们目前正在努力整合人工智能，在候选人准备时向他们提供内容。人工智能还将能够与卡在不同阶段性目标的候选人进行互动，并给他们提供辅导输入，推动他们进入下一个阶段。

我们很兴奋，并深深致力于为来自世界各地的候选人在他们的旅程中增加巨大的价值。我们希望帮助他们打破偏见，打破瓶颈，并消除任何目前阻碍他们获得应有的职业和生活方式的因素。

根据最近的“大学生依然挨饿和无家可归”研究结果，66所调查机构中有36%的学生没有足够的食物可吃。

这份报告是由天普大学和威斯康星HOPE实验室的研究人员进行的，他们评估了46,000名大学和社区学院的学生的数据，并发现约四分之一的学生食物不安全，以至于他们被迫跳餐或减少食量，导致营养不良，甚至体重下降。

结果显示，社区学院的学生面临的问题似乎更为严重，有42%的学生表示他们难以获得足够的食物，有9%的学生在过去一个月中至少有一天因为贫困而没有吃饭。对于四年制大学的学生，这个比例为6%。

住房不安全

报告还发现，46%的社区学院学生和36%的大学生面临住房不安全的问题，这意味着他们可能面临各种住房问题，比如难以支付账单、面临被驱逐的风险、频繁搬家或者无家可归。

令人震惊的是，9%的大学生和12%的社区学院学生报告称，在过去一年中某个时候无家可归，有3%的学生表示在学习期间曾在废弃建筑物、汽车或其他地方睡觉。其中21%的无家可归学生感到自己居住的地方不安全。

显然，食物和住房不安全都会对学业、健康和幸福产生严重的不良影响。天普大学高等教育政策教授、该报告的主要作者Sara Goldrick-Rab告诉NPR说：

“这真的削弱了他们在学校的能力。他们的成绩受到影响，他们的考试成绩似乎较低，总体而言，他们顺利毕业的机会更小。他们几乎无法摆脱贫困状况，足以完成学位。”

问题原因以及可行措施

众所周知，美国的生活成本和学费都很高 - 根据大学理事会的最新数据，社区学院（更经济的高等教育选择）的学生平均每年将花费11,970美元用于学费、住宿和膳食。

虽然这项调查的结果不能代表所有学生，但类似的研究显示出明显的趋势。例如，加利福尼亚大学系统的40%学生报告称食物不安全。

研究人员指出，大学中的饥饿问题并不是一个新问题，但似乎是“系统性”的，并且正在恶化，高昂的大学费用和不足够的财政援助计划被认为是问题的原因。兼职工作的竞争也很激烈，使学生更难以自行筹资。

尽管更多的低收入学生正在上大学，得益于需求导向的奖学金和补助金，但显然这些财政援助往往还不足以维持许多学生的生计。

研究人员还指出，大学应该认识到并应对他们的学生面临的饥饿和无家可归问题，特别是因为面临这些问题的学生似乎表现出很强的韧性，和他们的同龄人一样努力工作。

Goldrick-Rab表示：“在课堂内外，学术努力的程度是相同的，无论学生是否面临食物和住房不安全的问题。因此，非常重要的是要提供支持，以确保顺利完成学位。”

大学和学院已经采取措施来帮助 有需要的学生，因为财政不稳定已被公认为学生可能辍学的主要原因之一。一些学校在餐厅提供更多低成本选项或免费餐券，而在纽约市，圣约翰大学为有急需开支的学生提供小额一次性津贴。在华盛顿特区，乔治华盛顿大学开设了一个为有需要的学生提供免费食物的食品银行。

然而，许多倡导者担心学校仍然没有采取足够的措施。