And affectionately known as the Dull-n-Boring 
That changes things a bit. If the Canberra site for study is ANU, that makes it a lot more attractive. ANU is a great and beautiful place and the student life (ie drinking) is good. University of Canberra is not so interesting.
In Sydney and Melbourne, a consideration would be whether you’re going to staying close to where you’re doing the studying. If it’s central, all well and good. If you’re staying a fair way out of town without good transport that would make a difference.
The University of Sydney, UTS, the University of Melbourne and RMIT (for example) are all very centrally located. Other places can be a long way from the vibrant life of the city. Whatever the advantages of Monash and LaTrobe in Melbourne are, they certainly don’t have much to recommend them in terms of being close to fun.
What about Macquarie University? Close enough to be worthwhile? My other option is the University of Melbourne.
Macquarie Uni’s in a good place. It’s right across the road from the Macquarie Centre, which is one of the bigger shopping centres in Sydney (It’s got an ice rink!). It’s in a suburb called North Ryde, which is a fairly upper-middle-class area. I used to live in Ryde, and spent a lot of time working/socialising around the North Ryde area. There’s lots of pubs, a cinema, the aforementioned ice skating rink etc. From the Macquarie Centre there’s a whole heap of public transport available. IIRC, the buses from the MC to the QVB (Queen Victoria Building) in Sydney take between 25-40 minutes depending on traffic, and most run straight through so there’s no need to swap buses. So it’s not right in the heart of Sydney, but it’s in an area that’s cheaper to live than the city CBD and it’s pretty easy to get wherever you’re going from there.
I’d echo what **Sierra Indigo ** said. Macquarie Uni is about 15km or so from the Sydney CBD. The express bus service between the uni and the city is reasonably efficient, although it can a be a bit slow in peak times. Indeed, there’s an underground rail link currently under construction, so if you’re prepared to wait until 2008 you’ll be able to get to and from Macquarie very efficiently by train.
If you’re looking for actuarial options iwakura43, you may also like to check out ANU (the Australian National University) in Canberra or UNSW (the University of NSW) in Sydney. They both have actuarial faculties.
And contrary to what some others have said about it, Canberra is a great place to live and socialise and a very nice place to live.
I’m an American student in Australia, and I chose Canberra …
… but then again, coming from Indiana, it was a significant upgrade
I think Canberra’s a great place to live and there’s plenty of options for socialising despite what Sydney and Melbourne residents might say. However, I’d have to agree that, of your choices, Melbourne probably shows off what’s best about Australia - because at least it is on the shore - and is a truly fantastic city. I don’t think there’s anything like it in the States, whereas there’s lots of cities similar enough to Sydney.
Of course being in Canberra means it’s relatively easy to take a long weekend (it’s a safe bet that unless you’re doing science you won’t have any Friday classes) and go to either Sydney or Melbourne for fairly cheap.
It’s just a shame that you’ll be here for all the suboptimal weather. But there is some pretty good skiing to be had in late August/early September …
I’m with Buns on this one. If you can’t do Brisbane or Perth, then Melbourne is the way to go. Canberra is breathtakingly boring. I dislike Sydney with a passion.