QS学生城市 可负担性 学费 生活成本 指标
留学选城市的时候，排名表上那一列可负担性分数最容易被误读。它不是一年要花多少钱，而是一个相对得分：学费涨一档，或者生活成本降一档，分数都会跟着动。QS 官网在 2026 年 7 月 21 日发布的最新一版 Best Student Cities 排名里，首尔第一次拿到第一，伦敦在连续六个版本第一之后落到第三位，官方把伦敦下滑的主要原因写成可负担性下降。这篇文章把这一项的算法拆开：数据来自哪里，权重怎么分，得分怎么标准化，学生自己又该怎么用这列数字。
Few columns in a ranking table cause as much confusion as the affordability score. It is not a price tag; it is a relative score that moves whenever tuition rises or the cost of living falls. In the edition released on 21 July 2026, Seoul took first place for the first time, Tokyo stayed second and London dropped to third, and the official commentary names declining affordability as the main driver of London's fall. This piece takes that one lens apart: where the data comes from, how the weights are set, how the score is standardised, and how a student should actually read it.
六项指标各占 16.67% / Six lenses at 16.67 per cent each
QS 把学生城市评估拆成六项：大学排名、学生构成、宜人性、雇主活跃度、可负担性、学生评价。官方在洞察页写得很直白，六项每项占总分 16.67%，也就是六分之一。可负担性这一项的满分是 100 分，对总分的影响最多约 16.7 分。一座城市把可负担性从 14 分提到 52 分，总分能追回接近 6 分，这个量级足以改变十名左右的位次。很多学生以为排名只看大学强不强，实际上有一半权重落在城市本身的条件上。看分差的时候，把六项分项调出来比只看总分更有信息量。
The scoring model has six lenses: university rankings, student mix, desirability, employer activity, affordability and student view. QS states that each lens carries 16.67 per cent of a city's total score, so affordability can move the final number by up to roughly 16.7 points. Lifting affordability from 14 to 52 recovers close to six points overall, which is often enough to shift a city several places in the table.
可负担性的三项指标：学费 生活成本 巨无霸指数 / Three inputs: tuition, cost of living, Big Mac
官方支持文档把可负担性拆成三项指标：学费得分、生活成本得分、巨无霸指数得分。学费得分看的是学生在这座城市念书要交多少学费，生活成本得分取自 Numbeo 的生活成本指数，里面包含房租、食品杂货、餐厅价格和当地购买力。第三项来自《经济学人》的巨无霸指数，用一份麦当劳汉堡的价格比较各地货币的购买力。三项都在城市层面换算，不针对某一所具体大学。常见的错误是拿自己手上那份 offer 去套这列分数，口径其实对不上。
Affordability is itself assembled from three indicators. The tuition fees score reflects what students pay at the city's universities; the cost of living score comes from Numbeo's Cost of Living Index, which covers rent, groceries, restaurant prices and local purchasing power; the third input is the Economist's Big Mac Index. All three are measured at city level rather than for a single institution, so a personal offer letter rarely maps cleanly onto the published figure.
学费得分取城市层面的国际生学费 / Tuition is read at city level
学费在这一项里权重最高，官方的理由是学费通常是留学支出里最大的一笔，也是决定学生是否继续升学的重要因素。数据取各院校公布的国际生学费，同一城市里多所上榜院校放进同一个池子换算，而不是只取最贵或最便宜的那一所。研究型大学与教学型学院同处一城时，城市的学费得分会把两者的差距平均掉。很多学生以为城市分数低就等于自己那所学校贵，这两件事经常不成立。挑学校前先查官网的国际生学费页，再回头看城市分数，顺序反过来会省掉不少纠结。
Tuition carries the heaviest weight inside the lens, because it is usually the largest single outlay for an international student and often decides whether they go ahead at all. QS pools the published international fees of the city's ranked institutions rather than picking the cheapest or the most expensive one. When a research university and a teaching college share a city, that gap is averaged away, so a low city score does not automatically mean your own course is expensive.
生活成本得分来自 Numbeo 指数 / Where the cost of living figure comes from
生活成本得分使用的是 Numbeo 的生活成本指数，这个指数把房租单列，再算食品、餐厅、交通与日用品的价格，最后用当地平均净工资衡量购买力。指数按月更新，样本来自用户提交的物价数据，大城市与旅游城市的样本密度更高，小城市的数据稀疏一些。租金在学生的实际预算里占比最大，Numbeo 也提供不含租金的版本，两种口径算出的城市排序往往不一样。看分数之前值得先弄清这一版用的是哪一种口径，否则很容易把两座城市的数字直接对比。
This score is based on Numbeo's Cost of Living Index, which treats rent as its own component and then weighs food, restaurants, transport and everyday goods against average net wages. The index is refreshed monthly from user-submitted prices, so large and tourist-heavy cities carry denser samples than smaller ones. Numbeo also publishes a version excluding rent, and the two versions do not rank cities in the same order.
得分标准化：序数换算与缩放 / From raw data to a score out of 100
三项指标先各自排序，再按名次换算成序数得分，然后按各自权重合成，最后缩放到该项最高分的城市等于 100。可负担性 14.4 分并不表示伦敦一年只花 14.4 分的钱，它说明伦敦在这项指标上离满分城市很远。同一套 100 分制让不同年份之间可以比较，前提是指标构成和权重没有改动。官方在方法论页写明，指标会定期复核，权重也可能调整，跨年份对比前要确认当年的版本。
Each indicator is first ranked and converted into an ordinal score, combined using the weights, and then scaled so that the top city in the category scores 100. An affordability score of 14.4 therefore says London sits far behind the best city, not that a year in London costs 14.4 units of anything. Comparability across editions holds only while the indicator set and weights stay put, and QS reviews both on a regular cycle.
伦敦可负担性 14.4 分的成因 / Why London scores 14.4 on affordability
官方结果分析给出的解释很直接：伦敦丢掉第一名的原因是可负担性下降，爱丁堡在这一项上比上一版更差，所有上榜的英国城市可负担性都在下降。亚太城市的方向相反，台北、香港、东京、首尔的可负担性得分都提高超过 10 分，首尔在 2025 年之后继续改善，最终总分 100。这一项的分差往往来自两端同时变化，学费上调是一端，汇率与本地物价是另一端。很多学生以为伦敦分数低只是因为学费贵，生活成本的推力同样明显。把这两端分开算，才知道自己的预算该往哪里留余地。
The official commentary is blunt about the cause: declining affordability drove London out of first place, Edinburgh also lost ground on this metric, and every ranked UK city saw its affordability score fall. Asia Pacific cities moved the other way, with Taipei, Hong Kong SAR, Tokyo and Seoul all improving by more than ten points. The gap usually opens from both ends at once, with higher tuition on one side and currency and local prices on the other.
巨无霸指数的用途与局限 / What the Big Mac Index can and cannot show
巨无霸指数用一份汉堡的价格衡量货币购买力，数据稳定、更新频繁，缺点是篮子太窄，代表不了学生的真实支出结构。QS 把它放进可负担性作为补充项，本意是让依赖租赁与餐饮的城市不至于被单一指数带偏。这一项对汇率格外敏感，本币走弱时分数会明显抬高，与当地的绝对物价没有必然关系。常见的错误是把它当成物价排名，它衡量的其实是同一篮子在不同货币下的相对价格。
The Big Mac Index uses a single fast-food item to gauge purchasing power, which makes it stable and quick to update but far too narrow to stand for a student budget. QS keeps it as a supporting input so that cities shaped by rent and eating out are not judged by one number alone. It reacts strongly to exchange rates, and it is not a price ranking in the ordinary sense.
入榜门槛：25 万人口与 2 所上榜大学 / Eligibility: 250,000 people and two ranked universities
城市要进这张榜，需要满足两个硬条件：城市人口超过 25 万，并且至少有 2 所大学出现在最新一版的 QS 世界大学排名里。人口口径尽量采用都会区，官方说明这样做是为了让不同国家之间的城市大致可比。这条门槛解释了为什么一些学生喜欢的小城始终不出现，也解释了院校数量多的城市在多项指标上的天然优势。首尔这次以 23 所上榜院校成为机构数量最多的城市。选城时如果目标城市没进榜，直接按学费与生活成本自己估算，比找一个近似城市代替更靠谱。
Two conditions decide whether a city appears at all: a population above 250,000 and at least two universities in the latest QS World University Rankings. Metropolitan figures are used where possible, which QS explains as a way of comparing like with like across countries. Cities with many ranked institutions therefore start with a structural advantage, and Seoul led the field this time with 23 ranked universities.
学生问卷里的可负担性评分 / Affordability as students rate it
学生评价这一项里，问卷让在读学生给城市打分，评分维度包含可负担性，与官方指数形成对照。学生的体感与统计口径经常不一致，租金统计按全市平均，而学生实际住的是学生公寓或者合租，两者差得很远。官方在问句说明里写明，得分会按国际学生回复比例做调整，回复量少的城市这一项要更谨慎地看。两套数据一起看，比只信一列分数更接近自己的真实预算。
Inside the student view lens, current students rate their city across nine categories, and affordability is one of them. Their judgement often diverges from the statistical index, because city-wide rent averages sit far from what a student pays in halls or a shared flat. QS adjusts these ratings for the share of international responses, so cities with thin response rates deserve more caution.
学费与生活成本的时点差 / Tuition and living costs move on different clocks
学费按学年公布，往往在入学前一到两年就锁定，个别国家还会按立法年度调整上限。生活成本指数按月更新，汇率每天都在动，两者的时点差会让同一座城市的分数在一年内出现意外变化。计划三年制本科时，把已知的学费涨幅逐年叠加，比只看第一年的数字更接近总支出。这一步最容易出错的地方，是把统计发布的时间和入学年份混在一起。看清数据对应的学年，比记住分数本身更重要。
Tuition is published by academic year and is often fixed a year or two before entry, while living cost data is refreshed monthly and exchange rates move daily. Because the two clocks differ, a city's score can shift inside a single year without anything changing on campus. For a three-year degree, stacking the known fee increases year by year gets much closer to the total than reading the first-year figure alone.
把城市分数拆回自己的预算 / Turning the score into your own budget
拿到城市分数之后，更实用的做法是把它拆回两项：查目标院校官网上的国际生学费，再按 Numbeo 的城市页面估算一年的租金与日常开销，两项相加就是自己的年度预算区间。城市分数只用来做初筛，例如把可负担性低于 25 分的城市标成需要额外准备奖学金的选项。硕士一年与本科三年的判断标准也不一样，年限越长，生活成本的影响越接近学费。分数帮不上细节，但能帮你决定先查哪几座城市。
A more useful move is to break the score back into its parts: check international fees on the university's own website, then estimate a year of rent and living costs from the city page on Numbeo. Add the two and you have a personal budget band. The city score works best as a first filter, and a one-year master's deserves different treatment from a three-year undergraduate degree.
城市排名不能替代专业排名 / A city ranking is not a subject ranking
城市排名衡量的是留学生活的整体条件，不衡量具体专业的强弱。同一座城市里，不同学校的同一专业可能差出几个等级，反过来，专业很强但可负担性很低的项目，也可能因为生活成本被劝退。官方提醒这张榜的用途是帮助比较城市，而不是替代专业排名。很多学生以为总分高的城市一定更适合自己，先把六个分项的分布看一眼，结论常常会变。真正要花时间的，是把自己在意的那两项挑出来，再回到院校官网核对具体数字。
This table describes the conditions of student life in a city, not the strength of a particular course. Within one city, the same subject can differ by several tiers between institutions, and a strong programme in an expensive city can still be ruled out on cost grounds. Read the six sub-scores as a starting point, then go back to the university pages for the numbers that actually apply to you.
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