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Universities in Central America

What Are the Top Five Universities in Central America?

A quick look at the top five-ranked universities in Central America, as rated by QS.

One of the most underreported facets of life in Central America is its education. It’s true the region isn’t famous the quality of its school systems and educational facilities. Poor countries without many resources tend not to shine in this regard.

But that’s not to say the region doesn’t have its educational stars that shine. Costa Rica, for example, is famous for placing education as a priority instead having an army.

So what about studying in the region as a foreigner?

Is Central America a place where students from outside the region go for study? A place where they enroll into a university? The answer, it might surprise you to read, is yes.

It’s not so much that a student from North America or Europe will finish high school and go straight to university in Central America.

Far more likely they would go to college in their home country and, as part of their course there, spend a semester or a year studying abroad. That’s a common thing to do.

The most obvious thing to study in Central America is Spanish, or anything surrounding the Spanish language, like Spanish literature.

To study the language, you don’t even need to go to a real university. There are plenty of language schools out there, especially in Guatemala.

Latin American studies is another subject to study, where many U.S. universities will offer at least a semester in this part of the world.

And Spanish might not always be required, either – great news if you need to write your assignments in your mother tongue! Although, if you are studying in Central America, it’s well worth learning the language, even if the region does well for English proficiency.

Away from Spanish and Latin studies, there’s more.

You’ll also find Latin America’s best business school in Central America – INCAE, with campuses in Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Costa Rica also hosts the Universidad de la Paz (Peace University), a United Nations initiative, where students from around the world study peace.

It’s right there in their mandate, which says U de la Paz engages in “teaching, research, post-graduate training and dissemination of knowledge fundamental to the full development of the human person and societies through the interdisciplinary study of all matters relating to peace.

And then there’s Belize, with its Central America Health Sciences University, a medical school with far lower costs than similar facilities elsewhere.

But what are the top five universities in Central America? To answer that question, it’s time to consult the experts.

The leading experts on ranking universities and higher education facilities is QS. They’ve been putting together an annual list since 2004. Their annual World University Rankings is the most widely-used source of comparative data between universities around the world.

So there’s no better source to consult when ranking the best universities in Central America.

Of the QS top five-ranked Central American universities for this year, published on April 6, 2022, three are in Costa Rica, one is in Panama, and another one in Honduras. Let’s take a look at them.

  1. UCR – Universidad de Costa Rica (University of Costa Rica): UCR is Central America’s top ranked university, coming in 24th in Latin America (The #1 ranked university in Latin America, by the way, is the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.). Founded in 1940, UCR was the only university in Costa Rica until 1970, and it’s still the most prestigious. This school permeates through every aspect of life in Costa Rica, even for people who never studied there.
  2. TEC – Tecnológico de Costa Rica (Costa Rica Institute of Technology): Founded in 1971, TEC ranks as the 52nd best university in Latin America. As befits it’s name, it’s a technology-focused facility, producing the best engineers and scientists in the region. TEC is in Cartago, east of San Jose.
  3. UTP – Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá (Technological University of Panama): The fourth-highest ranked university in Central America (and 67th in Latin America) is UTP in Panama City, Panama. It’s Panama’s second-largest university, after the older University of Panama, but comes number one for the quality of its higher education in that country. Alongside TEC in neighboring Costa Rica, UTP maintains a strong focus on science, technology, and engineering.
  4. UNA – Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (National University of Costa Rica): UNA is Costa Rica’s “other” big public university. Think of it as sharing the same sort of rivalry with UCR as, say, Oxford and Cambridge do in England, or Harvard and Yale do in the USA. Located in Heredia, UNA turns that city into as decent a replica of a “typical college town” as there is in this part of the world. It ranks as the 79th top Latin American university by QS. UNA has a slightly more humanities feel than UCR, which is more practical (we’re generalizing here). It has strong ecology, sociology, and education programs. The university is also home to Costa Rica’s main volcano and seismology research center. It rates as 97th in Latin America.
  5. UNAH – Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (Autonomous National University of Honduras): UNAH (131st in Latin America) is the fifth-highest ranked university in Central America. Located in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, it’s the national public university of that country, with eight more regional centers scattered in other major cities.

So that’s the top five universities in Central America, as ranked by QS in their latest rankings for 2022.

If you’re interested in studying in Central America, it’s worth checking out any of the schools above to see if they run programs with your current university.

For Spanish speakers looking to expand their academic credentials and experience life in this part of the world, time at a Central American university might be time well spent.

CA Staff

CA Staff