DESPITE FURTHER dropping in its regional standing, the University of Santo Tomas remained the Philippines’ fourth-best school in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings: Asia 2026.
UST continued to boost its overall score to 53.5 from 42.0, but it still fell to 184th from 181st the previous year, which was two notches lower than its placement in 2024.
In the latest edition of the assessment, the España-based campus was not among the two Philippine universities that saw improvement in their regional rankings.
The University of the Philippines retained its spot as the country’s top school but fell to 104th in the region from 86th.
It was followed by Ateneo de Manila University, which improved by one spot to 141st in 2026. The only other Philippine school to improve its placement in Asia was Mapua University, which ranked 7th locally and rose to 544th from its previous spot within the 561-580th bracket.
De La Salle University emerged as the third-best institution in the country despite tumbling to 178th from 163rd.
According to the ranking body, the decline in regional standings reflected the “heightened volatility” of the latest evaluation following the entry of 550 new institutions, which resulted in a total of 1,529 universities in the lineup.
QS assesses the universities based on eleven indicators, namely academic (30%) and employer reputation (20%), faculty-student ratio (10%), international research network (10%), citations per paper (10%), paper per faculty (5%), staff with PhD (5%) and global engagement, consisting of international research network (10%), faculty ratio (2.5%) and student ratio (2.5%) and inbound (2.5%) and outbound exchange student ratio (2.5%).
UST was the country’s highest-ranking institution for inbound and outbound student exchange, placing 26th in Asia for the latter indicator.
However, its placement worsened in most of the other indicators like other Philippine universities: employer reputation (-11), faculty-student ratio (-380), international research network (-129), citations per paper (-249), paper per faculty (-461) and staff with PhD (-196).
Regardless, the Dominican-led institution ranked in the regional top 100 for employer reputation (95th) and international faculty ratio (98th).
There were a total of 35 ranked Philippine universities in this year’s edition of the assessment, with ten making the list for the first time.
Adamson University (464 from 411-420) claimed fifth spot nationwide, followed by the University of San Carlos (507 from 481-490). In eighth place was the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (671, from 541-560), while Siliman University (694, from 601-620) and Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (731-740, from 701-750) nabbed the ninth and tenth spot, respectively.
The following are the remaining included institutions in the country. Universities with only one placement are newly ranked:
- Far Eastern University (681-700 to 761-770)
- Ateneo de Davao University (701-750 to 851-900)
- Saint Louis University (751-800 to 951-1000)
- Xavier University (801-850 to 951-1000)
- Central Luzon State University (851-900 to 1001-1100)
- Central Mindanao University (851-900 to 1001-1100)
- Lyceum of the Philippines University (801-850 to 1001-1100)
- Mindanao State University (801-850 to 1001-1100)
- The Cebu Technological University (851-900 to 1101-1200)
- Visayas State University (1101-1200)
- Angeles University Foundation (901+ to 1201-1300)
- Central Philippine University (851-900 to 1201-1300)
- National University (1201-1300)
- University of Southeastern Philippines (901+ to 1201-1300)
- West Visayas State University (901+ to 1201-1300)
- Technological University of the Philippines (1301-1400)
- University of Mindanao (1301-1400)
- Batangas State University, The National Engineering University (1401-1500)
- Caraga State University (1401-1500)
- Mariano Marcos State University (1401-1500)
- University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines (901+ to 1401-1500)
- Bulacan State University (1501+)
- Ifugao State University (1501+)
- University of Southern Mindanao (901+ to 1501+)
- Western Mindanao State University (1501+)
Started in 2004, the QS World University Rankings is a yearly assessment of the performance of universities worldwide using comparative data on various indicators. F
