Alfredo Tolentino

The University of the Philippines (UP), Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), De La Salle University (DLSU), and University of Sto. Tomas (UST), known together as the ‘Big 4’, maintained their spots as the country’s top higher education institutions in the 2025 Quacquarelli-Symonds (QS) Asia University Rankings, despite all slipping down from their last year’s region-wide standing.

Photos Courtesy of RCHITECTS, Inc./The Varsitarian/The POST/University of the Philippines.

UP still leads as the country’s top university despite dropping eight places from its last year’s rank of 78th to settle at 86th this year.

The state-run university primarily edged out the other Big 4 institutions in terms of employer reputation at 94.4, academic reputation at 83.0, and faculty-student ratio at 47.9.

ADMU trailed behind UP placing 163rd, nine places behind its last year’s rank of 154th, to still secure the title as the country’s best private higher education institution.

ADMU settled second and below at almost every indicator but saw its highest scores in employer reputation at 93.6 and academic reputation at 64.2. 

DLSU and UST followed closely as third and fourth best in the country by securing ranks 163rd and 181st respectively.

DLSU fell nine ranks from its previous ranking of 154th but still increased its score in employer reputation and academic reputation indicators.

DLSU vice president for research and innovation Raymond Tan welcomed the results by reaffirming the university’s commitment to academic improvement and said in a message, ”DLSU is fully committed to improving our standing amidst the highly competitive and dynamic higher education ecosystem in Asia."

UST also slipped two ranks down from last year’s ranking of 179th but improved its overall score from 28.7 to 42.0 and remained the country's leading university in global engagement efforts.

21 other universities, including nine first-timers, joined the Big 4 in this year’s list to round up the country’s bet at 25 out of the 984 Asian universities with China’s Peking University taking the title as best university in Asia.

QS evaluates academic institutions yearly using four major criteria including research & discovery, learning experience, global engagement, and employability.

The four criteria are further subdivided into 11 specific indicators including academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-to-student ratio, international research network, citations per paper, papers per faculty, staff with PhD, international faculty, international students, inbound exchange students, and outbound exchange students.