Which are the 10 best Latin American universities?

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According to the ranking prepared by QS consulting, Brazil tops number one on the best quality universities in Latin America.

This year, Brazil ranked number one on the best universities of the region confirming its supremacy which seemed to be lost. According to this research which is done annually by QS consulting (Quacquarelli Symonds), since 2011 and that chooses the best institutions in Latin America, the country directed by Dilma Rousseff lead again due to its formation in higher education.

In first place of this list, we find Sao Pablo University (SPU), followed by State University of Campinas (UniCamp) also from Brazil, and in third place comes Pontifica Catholic University of Chile (UC) which was the top one last year.

Sao Pablo University Head, Marco Antonio Zago stated that the first place in the ranking confirms a “general tendency to progress” even considering the annual fluctuations. “We are a big massive university, with more than 90,000 students, while most of the other universities which lead the ranking are far smaller”.

In total, there are five Brazilian institutions in this selected group, in which we can find some from Mexico and Colombia. The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (FURJ) - Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro (UFRJ) - is ranked fifth in the QS consulting list, Paulista State University (PSU) - (la Universidad Estatal Paulista (UNESP) - ranked eighth and Brasilia University surprised everyone by climbing seven positions compared with 2014, ranking 10^th.

According to the information in the digital newspaper El país.com, an American article highlights that the Brazilian state universities have a higher level compared with the private ones, and also have a strict selection system. Although many foreign educational centers have established some agreements considering their potential, some others have relationships already lasting for years.

The fact that, Brazil includes some government plans which include sending 100,000 students to the best universities of the world, contributed to the result of top of the ranking.

Actual reasons

In Brazil, the Federal higher Education system includes the Federal higher Education Institutions and the private institutions. The universities are autonomous considering Scientific, Didactic financial and patrimonial areas and are ruled by the indivisibility principle between teaching, investigation and extension.

The department in charge of planning and coordinating the Higher Education National Policy (Política Nacional de Educación Superior) is the Higher Education Secretary part of the Ministry of Education (MOE). This Secretary is also responsible for the maintenance, supervision and development of the State Federal Higher Education institutions (SFHE) and also the supervision of the private higher education institutions.

To work, private institutions must have their accreditation with the Ministry of Education and during this process; curricular and teaching structures which the institutions offer are assessed among other factors. Faculties that are successful in this process can work for three years and the colleges and universities for five years. At the end of this process, these institutions must go through the process of accreditation again and must be evaluated every three years by the Higher Education National Assessment System (HENAS) - Sistema Nacional de Evaluación de la Educación Superior to assess the Teaching Quality.