UP leads Philippines universities in QS world rankings

MANILA, Philippines — The University of the Philippines slightly improved and retained its top spot in the latest world university rankings released by education information provider Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

UP ranks 404th out of 1,499 academic institutions on the list, up from 412th last year.

The 2024 QS World University Rankings is different from the one recently released by the Times Higher Education, which showed Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) overtaking UP among universities in Asia.

In the latest QS rankings, ADMU is at 563rd, up from 651-700 last year. Other Philippine universities on the list are De La Salle University at 681-690 (from 801-1,000), University of Santo Tomas at 801-850 (from 801-1,000) and University of San Carlos at 1,201-1,400 (new entry).

To mark its 20th edition, the QS said it implemented significant changes in its methodology, particularly by adding three new indicators: international research network (five percent), employment outcomes (five percent) and sustainability (five percent).

Previous indicators retained were academic reputation (30 percent), employer reputation (15 percent), faculty-student ratio (10 percent), citations per faculty (20 percent), international faculty ratio (five percent) and international student ratio (five percent).

“The 2024 QS World University Rankings represents a major step in the evolution of the exercise, marking the most significant innovation in its methodological paradigm since its inception two decades ago,” QS senior vice president Ben Sowter said.

“More than ever, it aligns with Gen Z and Alpha priorities, providing institutions with a unique lens through which to assess their performance in areas paramount to shaping a brighter future for generations to come,” Sowter added.

While its current ranking is still lower than in previous years, UP noted that it is among the top 27 percent of higher education institutions included in the list, from 44 percent in the 2016 edition.

Data showed that UP ranked significantly higher on the 2012 list at 348th and in 2020 at 396th.

This year, UP scored 27.6 out of the highest possible 100, with employer reputation the highest at 58.9.

“Employer reputation evaluates the perceptions of global employers, through a survey, on which institutions are providing the most job-ready graduates,” the UP Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs said.

ADMU obtained a score of 20.9, while the overall score of the other Philippine universities on the list were not released.

For the 12th time, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States topped the list with a perfect score of 100. It was followed by the University of Cambridge (99.2) and University of Oxford (98.9) in the United Kingdom, and Harvard University (98.3) and Stanford University (98.1) in the US.

Completing the top 10 were the ETH Zurich in Switzerland (93.3), National University of Singapore (92.7), University College London in the UK (92.4) and University of California, Berkeley in the US (90.4).

UP ranks 17th among Southeast Asian universities on the list, with the NUS ranking the highest at eighth.

They are followed by the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore at 26th, Universiti Malaya in Malaysia (65th), Universiti Sains Malaysia (137th), Universiti Putra Malaysia (158th), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (159th) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (188th), Chulalongkorn University in Thailand (211th), Universitas Indonesia (237th), Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia (263rd) and Bandung Institute of Technology (281st) also in Indonesia.