Central American University, San Salvador
The Universidad Centroamericana "Jose Simeon Cañas" (better known as UCA) was founded in September of 1965, by the request of a group of catholic families. This group appealed to the Salvadorian government and to la Compañía Jesus to create an university that would be an alternative to the national university of El Salvador (Universidad Nacional de El Salvador)
In its early years many social and economic groups of El Salvador considered many of its faculty as mediocre and deficient, except the faculty of medicine. As time passed, UCA evolved into an institution to be one of the best in Central America.
Trivia:
The university was considered to be one of the ideological battlefields between student, during the Salvadorian civil war.
In the year 2005 Claudia Jazrawi (better known as "Claudita) a student from the Academia Britanica Cuscatelca, refused an offered to study in the prestigious university. Nevertheless, students from prestigious highschools in El Salvador seek the university as an alternative, instead of studying abroad.
Often compared by Salvadorian to the University of Central Arkansas