AFTER placing 104th in the recent ranking of Asian universities, UST dropped out of the top 600 of the Quacquarelli-Symonds (QS) World University Rankings released last Sept. 6.
Other Philippine schools failed to enter the top 300 list, landing farther than their ranks in 2010.
State-run University of the Philippines (UP) is still the top Philippine university, but slid to the 332nd spot from 314th last year. Ateneo de Manila University followed, placing 360th from last year’s 307th.
De La Salle University dropped out of the 451-500 bracket and sank to the 551-600 bracket this year.
Last year, UST placed in the 551-600 bracket.
None of the Philippine universities made it to the top 300 in the field of Engineering and Technology, while UP was the only Philippine school to enter the top 300 in Life Sciences and Medicine (219th) and Natural Sciences (285th).
In the field of Arts and Humanities, only UP (123rd) and Ateneo (183rd) made it to the top 300.
Both were also the only schools in the top 300 of Social Sciences and Management, as UP ranked 167th and Ateneo, 219th.
In the Asian rankings, the University of the Philippines (UP) and Ateneo de Manila University ranked 62nd and 65th, respectively, while De La Salle University ranked 107th.
Observers blamed budget cuts in higher education for the schools’ declining performance in international rankings.
UST officials were not available for comment.
QS used different sets of criteria and percentages for the Asian and world rankings, its official website stated.
For the world rankings, the criteria used were academic reputation (40 percent), employer reputation (10 percent), citations per faculty (20 percent), faculty-student ratio (20 percent), proportion of international students (5 percent), and proportion of international faculty (5 percent).
Asian universities, meanwhile, were ranked based on academic peer review (30 percent), research citations per faculty (15 percent), citations per paper (15 percent), Asian employer review (10 percent), student-faculty ratio (20 percent), and international factors (10 percent).
The University of Cambridge remained the world’s top university, scoring a perfect 100 percent again, followed by Harvard University with 99.3 percent.
