Berlin cheapest top tier city in the world for international students

Berlin is the cheapest top tier city in the world for international students, and Boston the most expensive, according to new research published by international real estate advisor Savills.

An international student in the German capital can expect to spend just over $1,000 per month on combined living, accommodation and tuition expenses, whereas their counterpart in Boston needs to budget five times as much: $5,446. US cities make up the top three most expensive destinations for students, with Boston followed by New York then 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.

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”, comments Matthias Pink, Director and 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.  

The UK student housing market saw a record volume of investment in the first three quarters of 2015: $6.5 billion, 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. 

Paul Tostevin, Associate Director of Savills World Research, comments:
“According to our research, European universities have a clear advantage over other destinations if a student’s choice of location is predicated just on cost. However, the reputation of an institution, the job prospects after graduation and the language in which a course is taught tend to play a greater part in the decision-making process, hence why we continue to see large proportions of students choosing to study in more traditional – albeit expensive – locations.”

Nonetheless there are signs that this could be about to change: a number of leading  European institutions are planning to align themselves with the Bachelor degree system and to teach more courses in English.

Marcus Roberts, Director of Student Investment and Development at Savills, adds:  “This will broaden their appeal in the international marketplace and attract a significant increase in student numbers, making European cities, and those in The Netherlands and Germany in particular, strong potential growth areas for accommodation providers.”

View the full figures here.