The University of Santo Tomas was established in 1611 as the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de Santisimo Rosario and gained university status in 1645. The University is generally recognized as the educational institution in the Philippines with the oldest extant university charter. Government recognition was evident as early as the US Colonial era when in 1935 the Commonwealth government of the Philippines through the Historical Research and Markers Committee declared that UST was "oldest university under the American flag." In the 1990s, the Intramuros Administration installed a marker on the original site of the University of Santo Tomas with the recognition that the university is the "oldest university in Asia." In 2011 Pope Benedict XVI recognized UST as "the oldest institution of Catholic higher education in the Far East," while in 2012 the National Historical Commission of the Philippines published an online article recognizing UST as "Asia’s Oldest University. In 2011 the University of Santo Tomas celebrated its Quadricentennial.
University of San Carlos (USC)
Unlike the University of Santo Tomas, the true foundation year of the University of San Carlos had been a subject of several debates. Contrary to the position of the University of Santo Tomas, the University of San Carlos claims that it is older by 16 years by tracing its roots to the Colegio de San Ildefonso. According to the university's claim, San Carlos traces its roots to the Colegio de San Ildefonso founded by three Spanish Jesuit missionaries Antonio Sedeno, Pedro Chirino and Antonio Pereira on August 1, 1595. It was closed in 1769 at the expulsion of the Jesuits. In 1783, Bishop Mateo Joaquin de Arevalo initiated the opening of the Colegio-Seminario de San Carlos. In 1852, the management of the college was entrusted to the Dominican Christian priests, replaced in 1867 by the Vincentian Fathers then, in 1935, the Societas Verbi Divini or the Society of the Divine Word. The Colegio de San Carlos was granted its university charter in 1948, and in 1995 celebrated its Quadricentennial. Numerous scholars and official government bodies have reviewed the case. According to Dr. Victor Torres of the De La Salle University, the University of San Carlos' claim dates back to 1948 only when USC was declared a University. Fidel Villarroel from the University of Santo Tomas argued that USC only took over the facility of the former Colegio de San Ildefonso and that there is no 'visible' and 'clear' link between San Carlos and San Ildefonso. According to Fr. Aloysius Cartagenas, a professor at the Seminario Mayor de San Carlos of Cebu, “following Church tradition, the foundation event and date of University of San Carlos should be the decree of Bishop Romualdo Jimeno on 15 May 1867 and the first day of classes in the history of what is now USC is 1 July 1867, the day P. Jose Casarramona welcomed the first lay students to attend classes at the Seminario de San Carlos.” Thus, he says that San Carlos cannot claim to have descended from the Colegio de San Ildefonso founded by the Jesuits in 1595, despite taking over the latter's facilities when the Jesuits were expelled by Spanish authorities in 1769. According to him there is “no visible and clear link” between Colegio de San Ildefonso and USC. San Carlos was specifically for the training of diocesan priests, and it simply took over the facility of the former, a Jesuit central house with an attached day school. In 2010, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines installed a bronze marker declaring USC's foundation late in the 18th Century, effectively disproving any direct connection with the Colegio de San Ildefonso. This position was further cemented in 2012 when the National Historical Commission of the Philippines published an online article recognizing UST as "Asia’s Oldest University.
The San Jose Seminary in Loyola Heights, Quezon City makes no direct claim to titles of oldest, although it traces its direct origin from the Colegio de San Jose, which was established in 1601 by the Society of Jesus.
