UP takes 69th place in QS Asia University Rankings 2021

Out of the top 650 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Asia, the University of the Philippines ranked 69th according to Quacquarelli Symonds’ Asia University Rankings 2021 released on Wednesday, Nov. 25, making UP the only university in the country to make it to the list’s Top 100.

The university reached its highest ranking on the list in 2015 at 63rd place, followed by 2013 at 67th spot.

UP placed three spots higher than in the rankings’ 2020 edition. Joining UP in this year’s list are 13 Philippine universities including Ateneo de Manila University (135th), De La Salle University (166th), and University of Santo Tomas (186th).

QS Quacquarelli Symonds is a London-based global higher education think-tank and compilers of the world’s most consulted university ranking portfolio. While its QS Asia University Rankings highlights the top universities in Asia each year.

According to QS' website, the methodology used to create the ranking is similar to what was used for the QS World University Rankings (which UP placed at 396th among top 1,000 universities in its 2021 edition).

The 11 indicators used to compile the QS Asia University rankings are academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, international research network, citations per paper and papers per faculty, staff with a PhD, proportion of international faculty and proportion of international students, proportion of inbound exchange students and proportion of outbound exchange students.

With its 51.23 out of 100 overall rankings, UP was 113.2 percent above the regional average and 254.9 percent above the Philippine average (see images 1 and 2).

Other Philippine universities included on the list are University of San Carlos (451-550), Ateneo de Davao University, Mapua University and Silliman University (501-550); Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology (551-660); Adamson University (600+), Central Luzon State University, Central Mindanao University, Central Philippine University and Xavier University (601+).

The National University of Singapore is named Asia’s best university for the third consecutive year.

Commission on Higher Education chair Prospero de Vera III congratulated the Philippine universities that were included on the list of Asia’s best HEIs.

“The internationalization of Philippine HEIs has been a key strategy of the Duterte administration to improve the quality of education so we can produce world-class graduates. It is a key component of our efforts to improve access to quality education,” De Vera noted.