Universidad Panamericana (UP) was originally founded in 1967 as a business school. The group of scholars and business people who founded the Panamerican Institute of Top Business Management (IPADE), soon began promoting what it’s known today as Universidad Panamericana. The Panamerican Institute of Humanities (IPH), precursor to Universidad Panamericana, was founded in 1968. In 1978, the IPH received the university rank, and took the name of Universidad Panamericana, although both the IPADE and the IPH had initially conceived knowledge  as being unitary and universal- that is, a university.

UP has four campuses which give services to almost 12 thousand students in 33 degree programs. The first campus was inaugurated in Mexico City in 1968, the second in Guadalajara in 1981 and the third one in Aguascalientes in 1989. Campus Santa Fe, also located in Mexico City, was inaugurated in 2011. 

As a university with one spirit, UP works daily on three foundational pillars: teaching, research, and transmission of culture.

In virtue of an agreement between the Governing Board and the Prelature of Opus Dei, Universidad Panamericana has entrusted to the Prelature the spiritual attention and doctrinal guidance of all its activities. The University, in its few decades of life, has come to occupy a place as one of the top universities in Mexico.