UST still the 4th best PH University in QS World Rankings despite higher score

THE UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas obtained a higher overall score in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University rankings but it was not enough to improve its standing among Philippine institutions as it remained the country’s fourth best in the latest edition of the assessment.

UST retained its global rank of 851-900 after posting an overall score of 19.9, higher than the 13.8 it registered previously.

The University of the Philippines is still the country’s top educational institution despite slipping to 362nd from 336th worldwide. It was followed by Ateneo de Manila University, which rose to a global ranking of 511th from 516th, and De La Salle University, which dropped to 654th from 641-650.

UST outperformed newly-ranked institutions Adamson University and Mapua University which placed within the 1001-1200 and 1401+ bands, respectively.

Institutions’ ranks were based on the following indicators scaled against the world’s top-performing university: academic (30%) and employer (15%) reputation; faculty-student ratio (10%); citations per faculty (20%); international network (5%), which measures an institution’s global engagement; employment outcomes (5%) or the university graduates’ employability; and sustainability (5%), which assesses a university’s social and environmental impact.

According to QS, each school was evaluated under a “refined” methodology and a “more precise” assessment this year, resulting in a different distribution of scores from the 2025 edition.

Despite posting a lower global rank for international faculty (513rd from 459th), UST was deemed the top-performing institution in the area with a score of 38.5 out of 100. It also topped Philippine schools in international students, drawing a score of 9.0 and retaining its previous ranking of 801+ in the indicator.

UST improved in terms of employment outcomes with an overall score of 25.5, climbing to 631st from 690th previously. However, it had a lower global ranking in its highest-scored indicator employer reputation (45.9), which fell to 294th from 237th.

The University retained its 801+ ranking in the following criteria: sustainability (40.2), faculty student ratio (14.1), international research network (19.1) and citations per paper (1.7). It ranked 605th in terms of academic reputation (20.3) from 601+ previously.

UST’s score in the citations per faculty indicator was drawn from the 2,059 research papers it produced from 2019 to 2023 and 16,165 citations until 2024.

This was largely driven by Life Sciences & Medicine, which tallied 963 papers and 9,496 citations. Other subject areas are Engineering & Technology (336 papers), Social Sciences & Management (344 papers) and Natural Sciences (289 papers). The University was least productive in Arts & Humanities at 127 research outputs.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology still emerged as the best institution worldwide, followed by Imperial College London, Stanford University, University of Oxford and Harvard University.

A total of 1,501 schools from 106 locations obtained a ranking, 112 of them doing so for the first time.

Launched in 2004, the QS World University Rankings is an annual portfolio that assesses the performance of universities across the globe. F