The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

Choosing a university at which to study is quite a tough decision. Aside from selecting your major, there’s still the problem of finding which university fits you best. A lot of factors come in to effect; location, atmosphere, available majors, and of course, the tuition fees. When pondering which university would come out on top, it’s logical for one to imagine that private universities with the highest tuition fees would take the cake.

You see, what brought this into the limelight is the Times Higher Education (THE) latest publication saying that Egypt is among “the fastest improving higher education systems in developing countries over the past year”, according to their ranking. This improvement came as a result of the increase in Egypt’s representation in THE Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019. You see, Egypt had 19 spots in this list, compared to only nine last year, a huge step-up for our country.

Among the most improved universities was Mansoura University, ranked at joint 137^th, up from the 201-250 range (as per THE’s rankings) due to a rise in citations score and international outlook score. Such improvements have brought seven of Egypt’s universities to the top 200 table, instead of just two in the previous ranking. But who came out on top in Egypt?

Well, you’d think it has to be the AUC, but the American University in Cairo is actually in second place, and 122nd overall. The first spot is a public sector university, just like positions third to fifth: Mansoura University (137), Beni Suef University (148), and Kafr El-Sheikh University (156). Now the competition is rising, and we bet Cairo University graduates are betting they’ll be the number one university, while Ain Shams graduates think they’re the winners. In fact, the number one spot was taken by Suez Canal University, coming from way down in the 251-300 band last year to rank as the 114th overall, and the number one university in Egypt thanks to “significant improvements in citations and industry income.”