UP Manila is the health sciences centre of the University of the Philippines System, mandated as such by Republic Act 5163 in 1967. That mandate shapes everything about its course list: most of what it offers is a health profession, most of those programmes carry a service obligation, and the entry route for medicine is not the one senior high school students expect.
Below is the full published list by college, plus the conditions attached to it. For address, contacts and level flags, see the University of the Philippines Manila profile.
The degree-granting units
UP Manila's own Return Service policy names nine degree-granting units: the College of Medicine, College of Nursing, College of Dentistry, College of Pharmacy, College of Allied Medical Professions, College of Public Health, National Teacher Training Center for the Health Professions, College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Health Sciences. The Philippine General Hospital and the National Institutes of Health are part of UP Manila but do not grant degrees.
Undergraduate programmes by college
College of Allied Medical Professions (CAMP)
- BS Occupational Therapy — the first OT programme in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, running since 1962, recognised by the World Federation of Occupational Therapists
- BS Physical Therapy
- BS Speech Pathology
- BS Radiologic Technology — approved by the Board of Regents on 30 April 2026
Our guides to BS Occupational Therapy and BS Physical Therapy cover what each licence involves.
College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)
- BA Behavioral Science
- BA Development Studies
- BA Organizational Communication
- BA Philippine Arts
- BA Political Science
- BA Social Sciences (Area Studies)
- BS Applied Physics (Health Physics)
- BS Biochemistry
- BS Biology
- BS Computer Science
This is the part of UP Manila most people miss. If you want a UP Manila slot without committing to a health profession, CAS is where you look.
College of Dentistry
- Doctor of Dental Medicine
College of Nursing
- BS Nursing
College of Pharmacy
- BS Pharmaceutical Sciences
- BS Pharmacy
College of Public Health
- BS Public Health
College of Medicine
- BS Basic Medical Science Program (LU I and LU II curriculum)
- Doctor of Medicine, listed as post-baccalaureate
School of Health Sciences
- Diploma in Midwifery
- BS Nursing and Doctor of Medicine at the Palo, Leyte ladderised programme
The School of Health Sciences ladder
This is genuinely unusual and worth understanding before you dismiss it. The School of Health Sciences was set up in Tacloban, Leyte in 1976 under UP Manila, with a mandate to serve underserved Filipinos in rural and remote areas. Its curriculum is a ladder rather than a single degree.
UP Manila describes the steps as: the community health worker and midwifery level, then the nursing programme as the second ladder — another eight quarters of alternating classroom, clinical and community practicum leading to BS Nursing and the competencies of a public health nurse — then medicine as the last ladder, another twenty quarters of alternating classroom, clinical and community practicum, aimed at producing municipal health officers.
The trade is service. SHS graduates serve two years for every year of education, preferably in the community that nominated them. UP Manila states that about 90 per cent of SHS graduates were still serving in the Philippines after 33 years.
The Return Service Agreement
Nothing else in Philippine higher education works quite like this, and it is the single most important thing to understand before you list a UP Manila health course on your UPCAT form.
UP Manila states that the College of Allied Medical Professions, College of Dentistry, College of Nursing, College of Pharmacy, College of Public Health, College of Medicine and the School of Health Sciences are covered, and that the RSA is an absolute admission requirement for accepted applicants to those units.
The general policy, approved by the Board of Regents at its 1252nd meeting on 18 December 2009, sets out:
- The graduate shall serve in the Philippines within five years after graduation.
- The agreement is signed by the UP Manila Chancellor, the student and the parents, witnessed by the Dean or Director.
- The service period is set by the college and shall not be less than two years.
- Service is preferably employment with government agencies or institutions, underserved towns or provinces, non-government and cause-oriented organisations, along direct service, education and training, or research.
- Taking a second degree — a master's, an MD, a law degree — does not count as return service.
- A graduate who has not fully complied after five years pays double the cost of their education at the prevailing rate from time of entry, plus interest, less tuition already paid.
The UP College of Medicine also runs a Regionalization Program: students admitted through it undertake annual immersion in their nominating region and serve five years there after graduation.
On the UPCAT degree programme list, the covered UP Manila programmes are individually flagged, so you can see which ones carry the obligation before you submit your choices.
Graduate and professional programmes
UP Manila's published list runs far past the bachelor's level. The College of Public Health alone offers Master of Public Health, Master of Hospital Administration, Master of Occupational Health, and MS Public Health tracks in biostatistics, environmental health, medical microbiology, nutrition and parasitology, plus Doctor of Public Health in epidemiology, health promotion and education, medical microbiology, nutrition and parasitology.
The College of Medicine adds diplomas in bioethics, physiology, clinical epidemiology and clinical medicine tracks, master's degrees including forensic medicine, medical oncology, orthopedics, genetic counselling, pharmacology, physiology and medical anthropology, and an MD-PhD in Molecular Medicine. The National Teacher Training Center for the Health Professions offers the MHPEd professional track, the MAHPEd academic track and the DrHPEd, having abolished its older ladder-type curriculum effective 17 September 2020. There are also joint offerings across colleges, including Master of Clinical Audiology and MS Health Informatics.
What UP Manila does not publish
- Slots per programme. UP limits freshman slots per campus and per course through the deans concerned, but the numbers are not published.
- A cut-off UPG. No official passing score exists for any UP campus or course.
- The service period per college. The general Return Service Agreement policy sets a floor of two years and a five-year window; the actual period is set by each college, and you should ask the college directly rather than assume the minimum.
UP Manila does publish a Performance in Licensure page under its Academics section, which is the right place to look for how its health programmes do in Professional Regulation Commission examinations rather than any third-party ranking.
Getting in
Undergraduate entry is through the UPCAT. UP's Office of Admissions describes the test as four subtests — Language Proficiency in English and Filipino, Reading Comprehension in English and Filipino, Science, and Mathematics — with standardised scores combined with the composite of final grades in Grades 8 to 11 to produce the admission score, the UPG. Socio-economic and geographic considerations are also factored into the selection of campus qualifiers.
UP Manila adds two of its own conditions on the undergraduate admissions page: every applicant undergoes a health examination, and no one found by the University Health Service to have a dangerous, communicable, contagious or infectious disease, or to be physically unfit for the courses, is admitted. Dental Medicine applicants must also pass a dexterity exam, per the UPCAT programme list.
PEPT certificate holders may be admitted as freshmen in place of a high school diploma provided they pass the UPCAT. Once you qualify, you must confirm your intention to enrol with the Office of the University Registrar within the stated period or your slot is cancelled.
Our UPCAT guide goes into the test itself, and UPCAT qualification explained covers how the UPG works.
What it costs
This is where UP Manila's own site and current law point in different directions, and you should know that before you plan a budget.
The tuition page still displays the Socialized Tuition System framework: annual gross income brackets A through E2, per-unit rates for UP Diliman, UP Los Baños and UP Manila, discount levels from 33 per cent up to full discount with a monthly stipend, and the Grants-in-Aid Program that can waive miscellaneous fees. Since 2017, however, Republic Act 10931 has provided free tuition for qualified Filipino undergraduates in state universities, which is the regime most students actually enter under.
Because the published page and the statute describe different things, the safe move is to confirm your own assessment with the Office of the University Registrar. Our UP tuition fee guide and UP socialized tuition guide walk through both frameworks.
Sources
- University of the Philippines Manila, Academics: Programs (full degree list with college and category, BOR approval dates) — https://www.upm.edu.ph/academics-programs
- University of the Philippines Manila, Return Service Agreement (covered colleges, general policy, SHS and Regionalization history) — https://www.upm.edu.ph/admissions-rsa
- University of the Philippines Manila, Undergraduate Admissions — https://www.upm.edu.ph/admissions-undergraduate
- University of the Philippines Manila, Tuition Fees (STS brackets and Grants-in-Aid Program) — https://www.upm.edu.ph/admissions-tuition
- UP Office of Admissions, Degree Programs by campus and legend — https://upcat.up.edu.ph/htmls/courses.html
- UP Office of Admissions, About the UPCAT (subtests and UPG) — https://upcollegeadmissions.up.edu.ph/
