University of Santo Tomas

The University of Santo Tomas (UST; Filipino: Unibersidad ng Santo Tomás), officially the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines or colloquially as Ustê (pronounced [usˈtɛʔ]), is a private Catholic research university in Manila, Philippines. Founded on April 28, 1611, by Spanish friar Miguel de Benavides, third Archbishop of Manila, it has the oldest extant university charter in Asia and is one of the world's largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment found on one campus. It is the main campus of the University of Santo Tomas System that is run by the Order of Preachers.

UST was granted the title Royal by King Charles III of Spain in 1785. Pope Leo XIII made UST a pontifical university in 1902. Pope Pius XII bestowed the title of The Catholic University of the Philippines in 1947. The university houses the first and oldest engineering, law, medical, and pharmacy schools in the country. The main campus is the largest university in the city of Manila and is home to 22 degree-granting colleges, a parish church, and a teaching hospital. The National Museum of the Philippines declared four of the university's structures and the UST Baybayin Documents as National Cultural Treasures.

The university offers programs in over 180 undergraduate and graduate specializations. It has 26 programs recognized by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) as Centers of Excellence and Centers of Development. It is awarded institutional accreditation by the CHED through the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines (FAAP). The university has the highest number of Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities' Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA)-accredited programs in the country, with 59.

UST alumni and faculty include 30 Catholic saints, four presidents of the Philippines, 17 senators, nine chief justices, 22 national artists, a national scientist, and five billionaires. The athletic teams are the Growling Tigers, who are members of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines and have won the overall championships more than any other university.

History

The foundation of the university is attributed to the Spanish friar Miguel de Benavides. He came to the Philippines with the first Dominican mission in 1587. He went on to become bishop of Nueva Segovia and was promoted to become the third archbishop of Manila in 1602. Upon his death on July 26, 1605, Benavides bequeathed his library and personal property worth ₱1,500 to be used as the seed fund for the establishment of an institution of higher learning. Two days before, he made a testament in the presence of Dominican priests Domingo de Nieva and Bernardo de Santa Catalina, who were the executors of his last will. In June 1606, Nueva Segovia bishop Diego de Soria wrote a letter to King Philip III of Spain informing him of the plans of founding a colegio. He also added that the colegio be given authorization to grant academic degrees similar to those of the Colegio de Santo Tomás in Avila, Spain.

In 1609, permission to open the college was requested from King Philip III of Spain, which only reached Manila two years later. The university was founded on April 28, 1611. The act of foundation was signed by frays Baltasar Fort, Bernardo Navarro, and Francisco Minayo. Bernardo de Santa Catalina carried out the wishes of Benavides and was able to secure a building near the Dominican church and convent in the walled city of Intramuros in Manila for the college. The authorities took the example of universities in Spain, such as the University of Salamanca, and in Spanish America, such as the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, to become a model for the university. UST was first called the College of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary (Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santísimo Rosario), and in 1619, it was renamed Colegio de Santo Tomas in honor of the Dominican theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. On November 20, 1645, Pope Innocent X issued the papal bull In Supereminenti, which elevated the Colegio de Santo Tomás to a university and placed it under papal authority.

Following the royal decree of King Philip V of Spain in 1733 and bull Dudum emanarunt of Pope Clement XII in 1734, the Faculty of Canon Law (Facultad de Cánones) and the Faculty of Civil Law (Facultad de Derecho) were established.

The Royal Decree of May 20, 1865, from Queen Isabella II of Spain gave power to UST for the supervision of all secondary schools. Being the only institution of higher learning at that time, UST acted as the Department of Education of the country. After five years, the Minister of Overseas Colonies Segismundo Moret issued a decree that converted Real y Pontificia Universidad de Santo Tomás into Real y Pontificia Universidad de Filipinas. In 1871, the Superior Gobierno de Filipinas issued a decree that established the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (Facultad de Medicina y Farmacia). UST was allowed to grant a licentiate degree in medicine. From 1877 to 1901, 329 students were granted the licentiate degree. José Rizal studied medicine at the university from 1878 to 1882, where he was granted the rare privilege of studying simultaneously the preparatory course of medicine and the first year of medicine. The university began granting the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1902 during the new American system.

Campus

The UST main campus is the largest university in the city of Manila. Located on España Boulevard in the Sampaloc district, it is spread over an almost perfect square of 21.5 hectares. The university is part of the University Belt. In 1927, the university transferred to its present campus when the Dominicans deemed the Intramuros campus inadequate for the university's growing population.

The architectural style of buildings within the campus is influenced by the construction period, resulting in a significant variation. The designs of early structures are done by university priests and professors who used styles from the Renaissance Revival, Art Deco, Bauhaus, to International Style. The Sampaloc campus saw an extensive redevelopment at the turn of the century as 12 out of the 24 major buildings were constructed from 2002 to 2023. Several buildings, such as the Beato Angelico Building, the Thomas Aquinas Research Complex, and the hospital buildings, have adopted the capital and column of the UST Main Building, one of the university's iconic symbols. Seven buildings are also named after beatified Dominicans and Dominican saints.

The central axis of the campus comprises the Arch of the Centuries, the Plaza Benavides, the Benavides Monument, the Main Building, the Quadricentennial Square, the Miguel de Benavides Library, the Tan Yan Kee Student Center, and the upcoming Henry Sy Sr. Hall. Erected around 1680, the Arch of the Centuries served as the main entrance to the first campus in Intramuros. It transferred to its present site in 1954. The Main Building, designed by the priest and engineer Roque Ruaño, was built from 1924 to 1927. It is the first structure on the campus and once served as the Kilometer Zero of Manila. It houses the Faculty of Civil Law, the Faculty of Pharmacy, the College of Science, the Museum of Arts and Sciences, and the administrative offices.

The northeast quadrant of the campus includes the St. Raymund Penafort Building and the health and medical buildings. St. Raymund de Peñafort Building is built in International Style in 1955 and is home to the Faculty of Arts and Letters and the College of Commerce and Business Administration. Built in 1952, the Bauhaus-inspired San Martin de Porres Building houses the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, the College of Nursing, and the College of Rehabilitation Sciences. The UST Hospital complex comprises the main St. Vincent Building, the Benavides Cancer Institute, the St. John Paul II Building, and the UST Hospital Clinical Division. The St. John Paul II Building was inaugurated in 2019 and serves as the extension of the UST Hospital.

Administration and organization

UST operates under the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church, the apostolic constitution Ex corde Ecclesiae, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines supplementary ordinances of the Ex corde Ecclesiae, and laws of the Philippine government.

The executive authorities of the university are the chancellor, the vice-chancellor, the rector, and the vice-rector. The ex-officio chancellor is the Master of the Order of Preachers. He appoints the rector of the university upon the approval of the Holy See. Currently, Filipino-Dominican priest Gerard Timoner III holds the position. The ex-officio vice-chancellor of the university is the Prior Provincial of the Dominican Province of the Philippines. The rector serves as the university's chief executive officer. He is assisted by a council of regents, an academic senate and an economic council. A dean heads an academic unit while being assisted by a faculty council and a regent, who is a member of the Order of Preachers.

UST Manila has 19 civil colleges, three ecclesiastical colleges, and three basic education schools. These are academic units that are organically interdependent with one another. A college may be referred to as a faculty, college, school, or institute, depending on when the academic unit was founded. The faculties, such as the Faculty of Civil Law, are formed during the Spanish colonial period, while colleges and schools, such as the College of Education and the Graduate School have been used since the American period. Institutes are adjuncts or naturally separate units of a specific faculty or college. Once an adjunct institute reaches a certain enrollment threshold, it becomes a separate college, independent of its faculty or parent college. The College of Information and Computing Sciences was founded as an institute when it separated from the Faculty of Engineering in 2014. It was elevated to the status of a college in 2021.

The UST Central Seminary and the UST Hospital have separate statutes but are still under the university. As a pontifical university, the Faculty of Sacred Theology, Faculty of Philosophy, and the Faculty of Canon Law or the UST Faculties of Ecclesiastical Studies are also governed by the apostolic constitution Veritatis gaudium that was issued by Pope Francis on December 8, 2017.

UST has three basic education schools, the Junior High School (JHS), the Senior High School (SHS) and the Education High School (EHS), which serves as a laboratory for the College of Education. In 2025, a senior high school program opened esclusively for EHS completers. The UST Elementary School used to offer primary education for children in the K-12 levels, but gradually stopped accepting applications starting from the K-level until the last batch of Grade 6 students graduated in 2011.

Academic profile

UST offers over 63 undergraduate programs in over 100 undergraduate specializations, three professional programs, over 50 master programs, and over 20 doctorate programs, enrolling 45,731 students in the first term of the academic year 2026–2027. The Faculty of Art and Letters received the most freshmen with 4,664 students and the Faculty of Engineering followed with 4,406. In 2026, there are at least 200 foreign students, majority are from Asian countries. The UST Hospital, which serves as the training hospital of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, offers 21 residency training programs. The university produced 6,912 graduates in 2026.

Admissions

The university administers the University of Santo Tomas Entrance Test (USTET) as one of the admission requirements for high school and college in UST Manila, college in UST General Santos, and senior high school in UST Angelicum College. The results are released on April 28, also the foundation day of the university. In 2020 and 2021, the USTET was replaced by the UST Admission Rating (USTAR) because of the COVID-19 situation in the country. The USTAR was a composite score that evaluated parameters obtained primarily from the academic records of the applicant. In 2020, the university received 48,411 applications for the USTAR, admitting 7,772 college freshmen for the school year 2021–2022. The Faculty of Engineering had the most freshmen for three consecutive years, with 1,071 students. The USTET resumed in 2022 for the 2023–2024 school year.

The USTET is also conducted in 35 provincial testing centers and 8 international testing sites, namely Hong Kong, Doha, Dubai, Manama, Muscat, Al-Khobar, Jeddah, and Riyadh.

The Faculty of Medicine and Surgery separately conducts a psychological examination for the first-year Doctor of Medicine program as part of the admission process. However, the scholastic standing and NMAT score are given the biggest weight in accepting applicants. Applicants must have a GWA score of at least 2.00/B+/86% and an NMAT score of at least 85th percentile. About 480 candidates are accepted out of 1,700 to 1,900 applicants annually. No entrance examination was held in 2021. For the B.S. in Basic Human Studies (LEAPMed) program, the faculty shortlists the top 200 USTET college applicants using the UST Predictive Scoring. It comprises the USTET score or USTAR rating, the LEAPMed examination score, and the IQ score. After an interview and a psychological examination, only the top 90 applicants are accepted.

The Faculty of Civil Law also conducts a separate entrance examination for the degree of Juris Doctor.

Student life

The university marks events with a variety of ceremonies largely influenced by the Hispano-Filipino Dominican Catholic culture and Philippine culture. This includes the Misa de Apertura and Discurso de Apertura, the Mass and lecture opening the academic year. As one of the oldest traditions in the university, the Discurso began in 1866. The Thomasian Welcome Walk where freshmen pass under the Arch of the Centuries at the start of their education at the university. Part of the welcome events are the in-person orientation called Roarientation for higher education freshmen and Alab (flame) for basic education freshmen. The UST Paskuhan, a series of monthlong campus events, celebrate the significance and value of Christmas. It features reenactments of the Christmas story, a campus-wide banquet, live concerts, and light and pyrotechnic displays.

Just before the solemn investiture ceremonies or graduation, the academic year ends with the campus-wide Baccalaureate Mass, the Ceremony of the Light, and send-off rites that are often held at the grandstand. At the end of the Ceremony of the Light, graduating students turn around to face the cross on top of the UST Main Building to sing the UST Hymn. This gesture of turning around is carried on by students and alumni who watch the UAAP games in other venues. Instead of facing the competing team during the singing of the school hymn, Thomasians in the audience turn around to face the university flag that is waved by the UST Yellow Jackets pep squad at the bleachers. The main event of the closing ceremonies is the graduating students' recessional parade through the Arch of the Centuries, which signifies the culmination of their Thomasian life.

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