Philippines drops in World University Rankings

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine universities’ rankings dropped significantly in the 2024 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, with some schools losing eligibility for ranking and demoted to reporter status, a development attributed to the faster improvement of other universities in the world.

While remaining as the top Philippine university, Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) dropped to the 1,000-1,200 bracket this year from last year’s 351-400 bracket.

The University of the Philippines (UP) System dropped a few brackets from 801-1,000 in 2022 to 1,201-1,500 in 2023.

De La Salle University was in the 1,501+ bracket this year from last year’s 1,201-1,500, tied with the University of Santo Tomas (UST) which landed in the rankings for the first time after being under “reporter” status in previous years.

A “reporter” is a college or university that sends data to THE but is not eligible for ranking.

Mapua University, which was in the 1,501+ bracket last year, was placed under reporter status this year.

The significant drop in the rankings resulted from THE adopting a new methodology for this year’s list, with performance indicators being expanded to 18 from 13.

“We have moved from 13 to 18 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons, trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments. One of the metrics (study abroad) currently has zero weight but will be counted in the future,” THE said.

Performance indicators are still grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment), Research environment (volume, income and reputation), Research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence), International outlook (staff, students and research) and Industry (income and patents).

ADMU was the top overall performer in the indicators among Philippine universities, scoring the highest in teaching, research quality and industry. UP scored highest in research environment and UST was highest in international outlook.

New universities that earned reporter status are the Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU), University of Eastern Philippines and Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology. Still under reporter status are Cebu Technological University, Central Luzon State University, University of Science and Technology of Southern Philippines, Tarlac Agricultural University and Visayas State University.

Aside from the methodology shift, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said the drop in rankings could be attributed to other schools worldwide improving faster.

“There are additional HEIs (higher education institutions) that joined the rankings. If the scores of the new/additional HEIs are high, they will be ranked higher than Phil HEIs and the rank of Phil HEIs will go down,” CHED Chairman Prospero de Vera III told reporters yesterday.

“There are existing (previously ranked HEIs) that are improving their scores faster than Philippine HEIs (because these HEIs are increasing investments in research, faculty dev, facilities, etc. compared to Philippine HEIs) so they end up ranking higher than Philippine HEIs,” he added.

De Vera said CHED had provided MMSU a grant for a comprehensive analysis of THE’s 2024 ranking using data across universities to determine areas that need improvement.

“The results will help guide Phil HEIs on what they should do moving forward,” he said.

At least 105 new schools entered the rankings this year, which lists a total of 1,904 universities.