The De La Salle Christian Brothers eventually agreed to establish a school in Manila, conceding that the "upper-class children of the ruling elite families also needed good Catholic moral and spiritual training.

Three, Blimond Pierre Eilenbecker, Aloysius Gonzaga McGiverin and Augusto Correge, arrived on March 10, 1911, and the remaining six, Ptolomee Louis Duffaux, Goslin Camillus Henri, D. Joseph, Celba John Lynam, Imar William Reale, and Martin, on May 13.

Due to the lack of space on the original Nozaleda Campus in Paco, Manila, it moved to 2401 Taft Avenue in Malate, its present location.

[33] Initially, the De La Salle campus served as a secret shelter for several displaced civilians, nearby families, wounded soldiers, and some Filipino guerilla freedom fighters at the beginning of the Japanese occupation.

[43] In comparison to other schools in the capital, where massive protests were typical, the De La Salle campus was relatively quiet during the First Quarter Storm and Martial Law years.

At one point, soldiers went into the campus hunting for student activist (and later La Sallian editor in chief) William Chua, who was forced to hide in the trunk of a sympathetic faculty member's car.

[45] Outside of the campus, a number of alumni actively resisted the regime, such as prominent businessman and De La Salle high school alumnus Alfonso Yuchengco, who became an important part of the Light-A-Fire Movement.

[46] The broader student population became more active in protests against the authoritarian regime in 1983, becoming part of what was called the "middle force opposition" that grew across the nation after the Assassination of Ninoy Aquino.

A Mk 2 grenade was detonated outside the southern portion of the DLSU campus in front of a popular burger shop along Taft Avenue on September 26, 2010, at around 5:05 pm by opposing rival Law fraternities, the same day as the Philippine Bar exams conducted by the university.

The 50-hectare (120-acre) campus was built on land donated by the family of the late National Artist for Architecture and De La Salle alumnus Leandro Locsin.

[111] In 2016, DLSU signed an agreement with Ubisoft to open a new studio in the Philippines and to offer two new undergraduate courses in game development, as well as entertainment and multimedia computing.

[114][115][116][117] However, Ubisoft Philippines transferred its office to Bonifacio Global City in 2024 to address staffing challenges caused by its remote location.

Donated by the Rufino family,[141] the campus consists of a seven-story green building that houses 17 classrooms, an auditorium, an arbitration room, and a moot court.

As resolved by the board of trustees in June 2010, the president of De La Salle University must be a Lasallian Brother and be a holder of a PhD.

Presently, the Lasallian order consists of over 3,000 Christian Brothers, who together with 90,000 teachers and Lay associates help run and manage over 1,100 educational institutions established globally in 80 countries with over a million students worldwide.

[22][23] The university is also a member of local organizations, including the Philippine Association for Technological Education[164] and the South Manila Inter-Institutional Consortium.

[177] De La Salle's tuition fee is one of the highest in the Philippines in terms of annual payment and may vary in different colleges within the university.

[182] Meanwhile, children of faculty and staff, university athletes and performing artists, and senior editors of DLSU student publications are provided tuition fee discounts.

Its museum collection includes over 600 ceramic artifacts from Southeast Asia dating back as early as 200 BC, almost 400 specimens of rare Philippine banknotes and coins, over 200 artworks.

[218] Since 2000, DLSU has been the Commission on Higher Education Zonal Research Center for the 59 colleges and universities located in Las Piñas, Makati, Manila, Muntinlupa, Parañaque, Pasay, Pasig, Pateros, Taguig and San Juan.

[224] The Center for Micro-Hydro Technology for Rural Electrification of the College of Engineering, established in 2002 through Japan International Cooperation Agency funds,[225] is engaged in designing micro hydro generators.

[228] Both of the only two solar cars, SINAG (Tagalog for light beam)[229] and SIKAT (brilliance),[230] of the Philippines were made by DLSU engineering faculty and students.

[238] In 2020, the university's I-Nano facility initiated a project on developing a Thermal Mechanical Garment (outer layer of a space suit) made from Abaca fiber.

[239][240] In the same year, the university also won £200,000 (₱13.2 million) from the Newton Fund of the UK government for its research on the conversion of wastewater into nutrient-rich fertilizer for farming improvement.

[245] In September 2024, a student from the university won the 2024 James Dyson Award in the Philippines for his underground monitoring system that provides real-time video feeds of the Earth's subsurface.

[263] It has performed plays written by Palanca Awards laureates, including Unang Ulan ng Mayo (Tagalog for First Rainfall of May) by John Iremil Teodoro, which was staged for the fourth time in December 2011 in line with the LGBT month of Metro Manila[264] and Rizal is My President: 40 Leadership Tips from Jose Rizal by Joshua So based on the book written by Napoleon G. Almonte and staged during the May 2009 presidential elections.

[265][266] Other notable organizations include the De La Salle Innersoul, Green Media Group, and Lasallian Youth Orchestra.

It was later adopted by the NCAA basketball team and cheerleaders in 1965 when La Salle lost to Mapua Tech, but the Lasallites stayed to sing the Alma Mater Hymn at the end of the game.

The hymn is sung by students and alumni at the end of all La Salle gatherings with the gesture of continuously raising a clenched fist into the air.

The Lasallian spirit of "Zeal" on the other hand, is symbolized by three broken chevrons that represent the three broken leg bones suffered by Warrior Chieftain Johan Salla of Atphonus the Chaste, king of Oviedo Spain, who was the great-grandfather of Saint La Salle who fought several battles to defend Christian Spain from invading Eastern Moorish armies.