🇩🇴 57 institutions · 520,524 students · 2024
Higher education in the Dominican Republic — 37.4% of students are at one public university.
Every university and institute the higher-education ministry (MESCyT) counts — 35 universities and 22 specialised and technical institutes — with its students by level, new entrants, graduates, teaching staff and students born abroad in 2024, and its enrolment and graduates each year since 2010.
Students, 2024
520,524
66.1% women
At public institutions
43.2%
224,658 students
New entrants, 2024
109,356
Graduates, 2024
55,824
21,708 teaching staff
What it costs, and what isn't here
Tuition is not in MESCyT's yearbook and is not published as open data, for public or private institutions. Ask each institution for its current fees, including any rate for students from abroad.
MESCyT's yearbook gives counts per institution — students by level, new entrants, graduates, teaching staff and country of birth — but no fees, admission requirements, programme lists or graduate outcomes, so this is a directory, not a matcher.
Three institutions — Universidad Domínico Americano (UNICDA), Universidad Tecnológica del Sur (UTESUR) and Universidad de La Romana (UNIROMANA) — did not report for 2024. MESCyT's 2024 enrolment and new-entrant totals include estimates for them, using their 2023 figures, and it asks that the 2024 data be read with caution. They have no 2024 graduate figures.
Universities (35)
The Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), the public university, is more than a third of all students in the country on its own, so figures for “the largest institutions” would mostly be about it; this page lists institutions by type instead of ranking them. A dash means the institution has no row in that 2024 table.
Specialised higher-education institutes (16)
Instituto especializado de estudios superiores: 9,314 students in 2024.
Technical higher-education institutes (6)
Instituto técnico de estudios superiores: 15,047 students in 2024.
| Technical higher-education institute | Students, 2024 | New entrants | Graduates | Born abroad |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academia Superior de Ciencias AeronáuticasASCA · Public | 77 | 57 | 10 | 0 |
| Instituto Técnico de Estudios Superiores en Medio Ambiente y Recursos NaturalesITESMARENA · Public | 80 | 80 | — | 0 |
| Instituto Técnico Superior ComunitarioITSC · Public | 6,789 | 1,389 | 777 | 29 |
| Instituto Técnico Superior Mercy JácquezITESUMJ · Private | 175 | 101 | 4 | 8 |
| Instituto Técnico Superior Padre FantinoITESPF · Private | 114 | 12 | — | 7 |
| Instituto Tecnológico de las AméricasITLA · Public | 7,812 | 2,520 | 608 | 70 |
Public or private is the sector MESCyT gives each institution's graduates; for the institutions with no 2024 graduates it is the only assignment that reproduces MESCyT's own public and private enrolment totals at every level.
Students in the Dominican Republic, 2010–2024
All higher-education institutions, each year as MESCyT reports it.
The 2010–2024 figures are MESCyT's historical tables, as printed: a dash means the table gives no figure that year — the institution had not opened, had closed, reported nothing or, for graduates, had none. Graduates in 2011 total less than half of 2010 or 2012 in the source; they are shown as published. MESCyT's historical table prints the UASD's 2024 graduates as 1,713, the figure of the row above it; we use the 11,079 of its 2024 graduates table, the only value with which that year's column adds up.
Where the 520,524 study
- Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), public194,909 · 37.4%
- Other public institutions29,749 · 5.7%
- Private universities294,257 · 56.5%
- Private institutes1,609 · 0.3%
By level, 2024
- Higher technical (técnico superior)25,186 · 4.8%
- Undergraduate degree (grado)469,887 · 90.3%
- Specialisation (especialidad)4,209 · 0.8%
- Master's (maestría)20,594 · 4.0%
- Doctorate (doctorado)648 · 0.1%
Students born abroad, 2024
5,343 students (1.0%) were born outside the Dominican Republic, and 4,361 have no country of birth recorded. The most common countries of birth (our totals over the institutions):
- Haiti1,744
- United States1,234
- Venezuela867
- Puerto Rico248
- Spain189
- Cuba177
- Colombia166
- Guyana87
- Italy82
- Peru51
- Mexico45
- Honduras34
“Born abroad” counts students whose country of birth, as the institutions reported it to MESCyT, is not the Dominican Republic. It is not nationality: a student born in the United States may be a Dominican citizen, and a foreign national born in the Dominican Republic is not counted. Students whose country of birth is not stated are counted separately.
US federal student loans
5 Dominican universities take part in US federal student aid, so US students there can use Direct Loans. Their loan figures are on the Caribbean page; their student numbers are here.
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Source: Ministerio de Educación Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología (MESCyT), República Dominicana, “Informe General sobre Estadísticas de Educación Superior 2024 y Resumen Histórico 2010-2024”, Parte 1 and Parte 2 (the April 2026 update), mescyt.gob.do, downloaded 2026-10-20. The figures were re-keyed and arranged by CollegeMatcher: shares, the “born abroad” counts and national country totals, English names of countries and levels, and the public or private label of the institutions with no 2024 graduates are our work; institution names are MESCyT's. MESCyT's site reserves all rights in its publications, so only the figures are used here, not its tables or text.