The Ateneo de Manila University (also called "Ateneo de Manila" or simply "the Ateneo") is a private university run by the Society of Jesus in the Philippines. It began in 1859 when the City of Manila handed control of the Escuela Municipal de Manila in Intramuros, Manila to the Jesuits. It was then a state-subsidized school. It became a private school during the American occupation of the Philippines, and has moved from Manila to its current location. It received its university charter in 1959.
Its main campus in Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Metro Manila is home to the university's college and graduate school units, as well as its high school and grade school. Two other campuses, in Rockwell Center and Salcedo Village, both in Makati City, house the university's professional schools of business, law, and government. A fourth facility in the Don Eugenio López, Sr. Medical Complex in Ortigas Center, Pasig City houses its school of medicine and public health.
The Ateneo offers programs in the elementary, secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels. Its academic offerings cover various fields, including the Arts, Humanities, Business, Law, the Social Sciences, Philosophy, Theology, Medicine and Public Health, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Information Technology, Engineering, Environmental Science, and Government. Aside from teaching, the Ateneo de Manila also engages in research and social outreach.
It is one of only two universities in the Philippines to receive Level IV accreditation--the highest possible level--from the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines and the PAASCU. It received its Level IV accreditation on June 2004.
Among the Ateneo's alumni are Jose Rizal, the National Hero of the Philippines, several leaders of the propaganda movement during Philippine Revolution against Spain and the Philippine War against the United States, famous politicians including three Philippine Presidents, political activists, professionals, businessmen, and some famous writers and artists.