The Ateneo de Manila University operates from several campuses in Metro Manila, with each campus housing different academic and research units. Several thousand faculty members serve a diverse student body of different ages in different academic levels, from elementary to postgraduate. The Loyola Schools have around 8,000 undergraduate students and around 3,000 graduate students making the Ateneo small, in terms of population, relative to many other Philippine universities.
The University began in 1859 when the City of Manila turned over the Escuela Municipal de Manila, a public primary school in Intramuros, to Spanish Jesuits. The school took the name Ateneo when it began offering secondary education in 1865, and has since grown into a university engaged in teaching, research, and social outreach. Its academic programs are geared towards research coupled with praxis and real-world output through which the university and its community engage social problems, especially in areas of national development and addressing poverty.