University of Santo Tomas

The University of Santo Tomas (UST) is the oldest existing university in Asia. In terms of student population, it is the largest Catholic university in the world in a single campus. The institution was established through the initiative of Bishop Miguel de Benavides, O.P., third Archbishop of Manila. On July 24, 1605, he bequeathed the amount of one thousand five hundred pesos and his personal library for the establishment of a “seminary-college” to prepare young men for the priesthood. Those funds, and his personal library, became the nucleus for the start of UST and its library.

The founding of the University of Santo Tomas followed on April 28, 1611. With the original campus located in Intramuros, the Walled City of Manila, UST was first called Colegio de Nuestra Señora del Santisimo Rosario, and later renamed Colegio de Santo Tomas, in memory of the foremost Dominican Theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas.