Considered one of the best private universities in Brazil – it was elected six times by the Student Guide, published by Editora Abril, as the best among private individuals in the country – and recognized by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education as the largest Catholic university of the world, PUC Minas is home to more than 56,000 students in its undergraduate, postgraduate and extension courses. The permanent faculty reaches almost two thousand teachers and the staff are 2,411.
There are eight campuses located in the cities of Belo Horizonte, Betim, Contagem, Arcos, Poços de Caldas, Guanhães, Serro and Uberlândia, as well as three units – Barreiro, Praça da Liberdade and São Gabriel. At the undergraduate level, 102 baccalaureate courses are offered, of which two are taught at a distance, 12 undergraduate courses and seven technical courses.
The University’s mission is the human and social development of the academic community based on ethical and solidarity formation, the production and dissemination of knowledge, art and culture. The Tripod Teaching, Research and Extension is articulated in innovative projects and aimed at the transformation of society.
With regard to internationalization, PUC Minas has a strategic policy that involves international development, orientation and promotion in the areas of teaching, research and extension. It has more than 170 agreements with higher education institutions around the world and participates in several networks of international cooperation in the area of education
Understanding the need to overcome the barriers of time and space has led the University to invest heavily in advanced technologies, expanding access to higher education to thousands of students. If in 2003 there were only 288 students enrolled in five subjects offered at a distance, in 2016 that number jumped to more than 5 thousand registrations. Besides graduation, PUC Minas Virtual offers continuous training in specialization or professional updating courses.
The postgraduate program also has great advances and has 18 stricto sensu programs – masters and doctorates – in different areas. At the lato sensu postgraduate course, 363 courses bring together 10,743 students and in the stricto sensu there are 30 courses, of which 12 are doctoral students, with 1,571 students. In the triennial evaluation of the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (Capes), of the Ministry of Education (MEC), in 2013, the university’s stricto sensu graduate programs obtained notes that reveal the excellence of PUC Minas. Among the programs, the Postgraduate Program in Law stood out, which obtained a grade 6, on a scale ranging from 1 to 7, reaching a level of excellence and international recognition.
In the area of research, students, since graduation, have access to scientific initiation projects in various modalities. The extension projects of PUC Minas reach not only residents of the cities where the campuses and units are located, but of several regions of Minas Gerais and even of other states of the Country.