University of San Carlos
The University of San Carlos, colloquially referred to as San Carlos or Sangkarlos, is a private, Catholic, and research university administered by the Philippine Southern Province of the Society of the Divine Word in Cebu City, Philippines since 1935. It was founded originally in 1595 as Colegio de San Ildefonso, but was closed during the expulsion of the Jesuit missionaries in the Philippines in 1768. The Colegio reopened in 1783 as Seminario-Colegio de San Carlos, until it separated from the seminary in 1924. The Colegio de San Carlos became a university on July 1, 1948.
USC has 2 campuses with combined land area of 88 hectares or 217 acres. The Commission on Higher Education has recognized 8 of its programs as Centers of Excellence and 12 of its programs as Centers of Development as of March, 2016.
At present, USC has a population of 25,000+ students. 250+ of which are foreign students enrolled in its undergraduate and graduate programs. It offers academic programs at the undergraduate and graduate level.
San Carlos's notable alumni include 1 Philippine president, senators and congressmen, presidential cabinet members, military officials, legal personages, journalists, awards laureates, celebrities, and businessmen.
History
Early history
The current claim of the Administration of the University of San Carlos is that the institution was originally founded as the Colegio de San Ildefonso, a grammar school attached to the Jesuit residence in Cebu. It was established by Spanish Jesuit missionaries Antonio Sedeño, Pedro Chirino and Antonio Pereira in 1595. The Colegio de San Ildefonso was closed in 1769 with the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and the Spanish dominions.Prompted by the decree of the Council of Trent that every diocese must have a seminary for the formation and training of priests, Bishop Mateo Joaquin Rubio de Arevalo, in a letter dated October 25, 1777, petitioned Charles III of Spain for the legal bequest of the buildings of the old Colegio de San Ildefonso. This was granted by a royal decree dated October 29, 1779, which was subsequently confirmed by the Real Audiencia de Manila on the October 16, 1782. On August 23, 1783, the Spanish government officially turned over the properties that it had confiscated and hitherto owned, marking the birth of the Cebu Seminary, named the Real Seminario de San Carlos after the counter-reformation saint, St. Charles Borromeo.
Despite the founding of the seminary in 1783, there were no permanent faculty members during the first few years of its operation, as hardly anyone was trained for seminary administration and theological teaching. In 1825, the Seminary's first rector, Fr. José Morales del Rosario, was appointed by the Dominican Bishop Francisco Genoves, and was followed by a series of secular rectors until 1867. Bishop Genoves was succeeded by Bishop Romualdo Jimeno, another Dominican, whose episcopate saw the help of his confreres from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, which drastically improved the Seminary's quality of education.
The royal decree of Isabela II of Spain dated October 19, 1852 mandated the establishment of the Congregation of the Mission in the Philippine Islands “so that they should take charge of the teaching and administration of the Conciliar Seminaries.” With this, Bishop Jimeno invited the Vincentian Fathers to take over the Seminary in 1863. In 1867, the Seminary was formally turned over to Fr. José Casarramona, CM., who became rector. On May 15, 1867, in response to the local elite's petition to allow their sons to study, the Seminary allowed laymen to study as externs, by decree of Bishop Jimeno: "...in order that they may be duly instructed in science and virtue.”
A royal decree dated May 20, 1865, called for a system of Secondary Education which introduced a well-planned program for a five-year course of Humanistic Studies leading to the degree of Bachiller en Artes. The decree vested to the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, through its Rector, the direction, supervision and responsibility for the good running of such schools; the conduct of final examinations at the end of the five-year course; and the awarding of all diplomas of the Bachelor of Arts degree. The first of such schools in Cebu was only founded in 1887 by Martin Logarta, which closed down two years after. In response, in 1887 Bishop Martin Alcocer of Cebu pleaded to the Vincentian administration of the Seminario-Colegio de San Carlos to send more personnel in order to comply with government standards. The University of Santo Tomas recognized the five-year program of the Seminario-Colegio de San Carlos, and in 1894, the first batch of Cebuanos arrived in Manila and passed the examination for the Bachelor of Arts degree.
Claim of being the oldest in the Philippines
USC's claims as the "oldest educational institution or school in Asia" has been a long time subject of disputes with the University of Santo Tomas which on the other hand claims to be the "oldest university in Asia".However, this position is contested by scholars. 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 May 15, 1867 and the first day of classes in the history of what is now USC is July 1, 1867, the day Fr. José 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.The university, as an autonomous institute as per the modern definition of a university, started to function in 1867. Though claims have been made to its origin as an autonomous institute at the time of opening of a seminary as a religious school of indoctrination in 1783. University even stretches the claim of its origin back to founding of another center of religious teaching in 1595, which was later closed down. Thus claims about being the oldest, and being a university in its earlier versions or the claims of using shut down institutes as its constituents are concocted and disputed. 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.
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. 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.
Later history
After the transition from Spanish to American rule over the Philippines, the Seminario-Colegio obtained government recognition in 1912, under the rectorship of Fr. Jacinto Villalain. In 1924, Seminario-Colegio de San Carlos was split into a seminary and a college in response to Pope Pius XI's apostolic letter , which decreed that "seminaries should serve no other purpose than that for which they were founded." One of the institutions that emerged from this split was named San Carlos College. In the 1930s, the San Carlos College moved to a different location, P. del Rosario Street, while the seminary remained at Martires Street. In 1934, the College of Liberal Arts was reopened in the new building along P. del Rosario after facing a closure in 1927.The Fathers of the Society of the Divine Word took over the College in 1935, while the Seminary remained under the Vincentian Fathers until 1998. The first SVD rector of the San Carlos College was Fr. Arthur Dingman. In 1937, the Colleges of Law and Commerce were opened, followed by the College of Education in 1938, and by the College of Engineering in 1939. 1940 marked an important year in the history of the institution, as it was in this year when women were first admitted into the collegiate section under the Junior Normal School, opened in the same year.The Second World War saw the closure of the college in 1941. Japanese troops used the college's building as a garrison and a storage facility for food and ammunition. Shortly before Liberation, in 1944, the school was bombed by US forces, but it reopened in 1945. In 1946, the Cathedral Convent of Cebu and the Little Flower Academy along P. Gomez Street were rebuilt as a training department for the Education and Junior Normal students. In the same year, the following colleges were reopened: Normal, Education, Commerce, Law, and Engineering. In 1947, the College of Pharmacy was opened. San Carlos became a university in 1948, right after the completion of the Science Building along Pelaez Street. The Main Building along P. del Rosario was constructed in 1949, and was finished in 1950.
A few years after Liberation, San Carlos also commenced the construction of the first concrete building in Cebu across Pelaez Street, which was used for the Boys' High School. In the same block along P. del Rosario was the Santo Rosario Parish, then administered by SVD, as well as the Girls' High School. In 1946, San Carlos opened a campus in Dumanjug. In 1955, the Boys' HS moved to a campus along Mango Avenue. In 1962, the Girls' HS also moved to a different campus along J. Alcantara, which was also used for the training of teachers. Currently, the former building for Boys' HS has been converted to a multi-purpose building, while the former Girls' HS is now a Landbank branch.Following the persecution of foreign clergy by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, the University of San Carlos benefited significantly from the arrival of SVD priest-scholars from institutes such as the Catholic University of Peking. This unplanned influx spurred pioneering research in fields such as anthropology, physics, engineering, and philosophy, greatly contributing to the nation's post-war reconstruction. In 1963, the first Coconut Chemical Plant was opened by the University San Carlos in Talamban, as a joint project of the German and Philippine governments. In the same year, the Institute of Technology was opened in the Talamban Campus. The building occupied by this institute is now known as the L. Bunzel Building.
In the 1960s, USC underwent rapid expansion under the guidance of foreign priest-academicians. This period of growth coincided with a surge of militant nationalism, which led to calls for the Filipinization of all Catholic school administrations in the country. In 1970, Fr. Amante Castillo became the first Filipino president of USC, marking a pivotal change. In the subsequent decades, USC continued to expand and was often involved in significant national events, including the Martial Law era in the 1970s and the People Power Revolution at EDSA in 1986.
Starting in the 1980s, the Talamban expansion was further developed, with the construction of the Arnoldus Science Complex and Retreat House, Church of Sts. Arnold and Joseph, Science and Mathematics Education Building, Maintenance and Calibration Workshop, Arts and Sciences Building later named as the P. van Engelen Building, Health Sciences Building for the College of Nursing and the College of Pharmacy later named as the R. Hoeppener Building, College of Architecture and Fine Arts Building, Engineering Conference Center later named as the M. Richartz Building, and the Josef Baumgartner Learning Resource Center. In the Downtown Campus, the following buildings were constructed after the transfer of the College of Arts and Sciences to the Talamban Campus: Law and Graduate Business Building later named the E. Hoerdemann Building, Wrocklage Yard, Carolinian Inn, Kolk’s Nook, and Language Academy.Cardinal-elect Ladislav Nemet served as USC's chaplain in the 1980s.
In 2012, USC inaugurated one of the country's biggest university central library and learning resource center at the Talamban campus. Infrastructure development of USC Talamban campus is being undertaken continuously with the expansion and building of access roads within the campus, underground cabling of utilities and communication lines, and construction of the new university stadium, conference and tourism center. USC Talamban campus is envisioned as an Univer-City by 2030 one of the first among the universities in the country.
USC suffered significant backlash when on April 26, 2020, broadcaster Bobby Nalzaro wrote on a newspaper column about his worries over a reported announcement by the university that classes in all levels would resume on May 4, barely a week after the enhanced community quarantine in the city was to end under the city's original lockdown schedule of April 28. This announcement by the school sparked a large online backlash from the students, which expanded to backlash from other concerned parties after the extension was announced.
In 2025, the USC Basic Education department was formally separated from the rest of the university as San Carlos School of Cebu, Inc.. SCSC's grand launching ceremony was held on September 5, 2025.