44 attractive cities in the L’Etudiant ranking

The L’Etudiant magazine designed a ranking using about 15 criteria (number of students, training offer, accommodation offer, cultural offer, quality of living and transports, employability rate), and selected 44 cities “having all something to offer, whether big or small”.

“Top 5”: Toulouse, Lyon, Montpellier, Rennes and Grenoble

This year, combining all criteria, two cities share the first place with equal scores: Toulouse et Lyon. They are closely followed by Montpellier, Rennes and Grenoble, all forming the ranking’s Top 5. 

Major student hubs (cities counting more than 40,000 students) obviously lead the ranking, with Paris in 8th place, after Nantes and before Strasbourg.

Nice is the only student city not considered as a student hub (about 20,000 students) managing to reach the ranking’s Top 15. 

Finer results with specific criteria

In addition to the general results, L’Etudiant offers a search engine to filter results using various criteria, whether you favour quality of life, training, extracurricular activities or job availability.

For example, if you only take quality of life into account, Montpellier, Grenoble, Limoges, Saint-Denis de la Réunion and Nîmes become the ranking’s leader. Criteria used include amount of sunshine, transports and accommodation.

To help you settle, Campus France offers a series of practical information about the city in which you’ll continue your studies.