Jun 13, 2014 05:11 AM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Students aspire to get admitted into one of the Ivy League colleges for higher education.  Since there is cut-throat competition, most of the students fail to seek an entry. However, they still have an opportunity to graduate from an Asian Ivy League college.

A latest Forbes survey listed top Asian Universities that are equivalent to the top American colleges. These colleges offer tuition at a cheaper rate and provide a cultural hub for foreigners.

On top of the list is the National University of Singapore. Founded in 1905, the oldest higher educational institute in the country currently ranks 24^th in the world and number one in the 2014 QS University Rankings: Asia.

NUS also features in the global top 10 list for mechanical, chemical, civil and electrical engineering, geography, computer science, materials science, politics, communication and media studies, statistics and modern languages.

The school offers diverse campus community with students coming from European, Indian, Hong Kong and mainland education systems.

NUS  has established foreign campuses in places like Silicon Valley, Philadelphia, North Carolina, Connecticut, Shanghai, Beijing, Stockholm, India and Israel.

Next on the list is the Hong Kong University. Founded in 1911, HKU is considered as the Columbia of Hong Kong. Compared to most of the Asian colleges, HKU attracts highest number of international students. In 2012, The University of Hong Kong witnessed a 42 percent increase in foreign applicants as compared with the previous year, NYTimes reports.

"The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is determined to make Hong Kong a regional education hub. For instance, restrictions of entry visas have been relaxed in recent years, and permission has been given to non-local graduates to stay in Hong Kong for employment," said Judy Tsui, Vice President of Internationalization and Executive Education at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Top Universities reports.

"Graduates can stay for one year to find a job. There is no quota for recruitment of international graduate students, especially PhD students."

Professor Gregory B Raupp, Dean of Graduate Studies at the City University of Hong Kong said that there are tremendous career opportunities as several multi-national institutions have established branches in Hong Kong. Plus, the country is the premier trading hub between mainland China and the rest of the world.

Top 9 Asian Ivy League Colleges are as follows:

1.       National University of Singapore Vs Stanford University

2.       University of Hong Kong Vs Columbia University

3.       Seoul National University Vs University of Pennsylvania

4.       Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Vs Claremont McKenna College

5.       Nanyang Technological University Vs University of California, Berkeley

6.       Peking University Vs Yale University

7.       University of Tokyo Vs Cornell University

8.      Tsinghua University Vs Massachusetts Institute of Technology

9.       Nanjing University Vs University of Chicago

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