Located on two sites in the centre of Santiago, Bernardo O'Higgins University is one of many Chilean institutions to have taken its name from the Irish-born leader of the nation’s early 19th Century liberation from Spanish colonial rule.
A private institution, it was founded in 1990 with a single school of commercial engineering, adding law the following year. In 2018 its 23 undergraduate courses were offered by four faculties – social science, engineering, science and technology and education and health, with a significant part of its recent development, such as the addition of obstetrics and childcare in 2015, in the field of health.
There is an emphasis on "O’Higginian thought", focussed on "the dignity of people, equity, social promotion and public interest" and "an environment of discipline, respect and tolerance".
In 2017 it enrolled 6,205 undergraduate and 581 graduate students. While it remains a Spanish-medium institution, around 30 per cent of students took courses in English. It is one of 41 Chilean universities which admits students via the national PSU entrance examination, and well over half of them receive some form of financial assistance.
Accredited until 2022 by the Comission Nacional de Accreditation (CNA), it was ranked 30th among the 45 CNA institutions in its most recent rankings.
Academic distinctions include offering - in partnership with the University of Valencia, Spain - Chile’s first doctoral course in education and a research project which found that a strong link between a lack of access to parks and other green spaces and levels of obesity in different districts of Santiago.
