The first bishop of Guatemala, Francisco Marroquín, requested the approval of the Spanish crown to set up a grammar class, in which Latin was to be taught, as it was the intellectual language of the time.

[b] Towards the end of his life, in 1562, Marroquin left in his will some funds to set up a school, the Santo Tomás de Aquino, where Grammar, Arts, Philosophy and Theology would be taught.

[7] The Jesuits, who already had their Colegio de San Borja and wanted to run the seminary themselves, opposed its foundation, as they did not like other regular orders – Mercedarians, Franciscans and Dominicans or the leader of the secular clergy took an initiative in religious and educational matters.

The Franciscan friar Juan Antonio Liendo y Goicoechea reformed university education towards the end of the 18th century by introducing science; Chemistry, Physics, Anatomy and Mathematics; and technology studies.

After the Liberal Revolution in 1871, the conservatives defeat resulted in a complete change of direction in the education in Guatemala: once again the regular clergy was expelled from the country, and all of their properties we confiscated.

[18] In 1897, after the failure of the Exposición Centroamericana and the deep economic crisis that ensued, Reina Barrios implemented austerity measures that included closing the schools and university colleges.

[21] The new society became public on 15 September 1899 when the Guatemala City mayor invited some of its members to ceremonies for the Independence of Central America celebration that took place in the College of Law.

This society had several humanistic and social goals: Due to the strong accusations against his presidency, Estrada Cabrera closed "El Derecho" after only a year of its life, and they had Mendieta sent to prison after which he sent the Nicaraguan into exile for promoting rebellion against his government.

Also, by a decree published on 16 June 1900, Estrada Cabrera militarized all the male student centers, including the university colleges, who received military instruction for the six first months of their careers.

However, one of the first decrees of the new president Carlos Herrera y Luna -appointed president by the National Assembly on 8 April- was to appoint new authorities and faculty for the National University, which now had the following academic departments:[30] Herrera y Luna, as a token of appreciation of all the efforts of the university students during the last days of Estrada Cabrera regime, gave the different colleges their autonomy to elected their own authorities, although it did not grant them full autonomy.

Besides, then archbishop of Guatemala Mariano Rossell y Arellano found out that it was urgent to recover some of the former influence Catholic Church used to have, and that it lost during the liberal regime of Justo Rufino Barrios in 1872, and therefore decided to work with the United Fruit Company to get rid of the Revolutionary governments whom he accused of atheist and communist.

On 4 April 1954, Rossell y Arellano issued an open letter in which he denounced Communism advances in the country, and begged Guatemalans to rise in arms and fight against the common enemy of God and the Land.

His letter has published all over Guatemala, and even though he kept claiming that the Catholic Church was not seeking privileges in its anticommunist quest, Rossel y Arellano was able that after the 1954 coup, new president colonel Carlos Castillo Armas included the following back in the new Constitution of Guatemala, for the first time since 1872:[34] This way, the Catholic Church recover some of the former power it held before 1871, when the Liberal Reform confiscated its properties and cancelled its privileges, in a direct attack against it as the main conservative party member of the time.

Between 1951 and 1955, College of Law dean, Dr. Adolfo Molina Orantes, worked as a legal advisor for the Guatemalan delegation before the International Court of Justice of The Hague for the Nottebohm case (Liechtenstein v. Guatemala) [1955].

[36] In 1957 the highly regarded Marxist historian es:Severo Martínez Peláez return to Guatemala after his exile and joined the university as a faculty member.

The College of Economics dean, Rafael Piedrasanta Arandi, and the university president, Edmundo Vásquez Martínez, approved a scholarship for Martinez Pelaez to research the Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla, Spain between 1967 and 1969.

[37] In 1979, due to death threats from the general Fernando Romeo Lucas García regime, Martínez Peláez had to go into exile once again with his family and continued with his research and teaching activities in the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla in Mexico, where he was an invited speaker in several seminars and created new curricula for the College of History.

[39] During general Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes presidency, the university started suffering repression due to its position alongside the main labor unions, with three students murdered in front of the College of Law in 1962.

[40] The commission members had strongly opposed the conditions proposed by the Government to grant the concession EXMIBAL; after the attack against Bauer Paiz and Carney, on 13 February 1971 Mijangos López was assassinated by unknown assailants as he left his office long the 4th Avenue in Zone 1 of the Guatemala City.

[24] On 8 May 1971, Arana Osorio's administration finally granted the concession to EXMIBAL;[24] it covered 385 square kilometers in the area of El Estor, with and initial investment of US$228 million.

Just fifteen days after the murder of Castañeda de León, was missing his successor, Antonio Ciani García, and over the next 18 months almost every student leader and university faculty with political connections were threatened (even with the legal parties).

[42] Later, laws that severely restricted the university autonomy were proposed, and violating the constitutional mandate to give 5% of the national budget to the institution became commonplace for the government.

At least ten people died in Guatemala City in the most extensive wave of urban unrest since protests against the government of Fernando Romeo Lucas García in August 1978.

The government responded with three thousand Army soldiers, whom supported by light armored forces and the riot squad of the National Police, were deployed in central and peripheral areas of the city.

Also, the night of 3 September 1985 the University of San Carlos of Guatemala was occupied by the military who allegedly found an underground shooting range subversive propaganda.

After the murder or forced exile of most of its faculty, the stability of the College of Law after the Guatemalan Civil War was recovered with deanship of Cipriano Soto Tobar, who took office in 1988.

[47] Estuardo Galvez, who took that dean office in 2000 and later went on to become university president, was one of the members of the networks established by Soto; realizing the importance of the Bar Association, which was also a participant in the election of judges -and until then controlled by lawyers linked to the traditional capital of the country- Galvez sought from the beginning of his term to favor his post graduate students placing them in public institutions so that they could show their loyalty with favorable votes in the Bar elections.

On 23 August, Victor Hugo Rodriguez Jaramillo and Silvia Azurdia Utrera founders of MEU, were kidnapped and taken violently amid two cars that blocked their way.

And Mario De León left a press conference that the Student Body held that day at around 19:45 hours and was detained by the National Police and has not been seen again since.

During an emergency meeting in which the response to the government offensive was being discussed, Willy Ligorría called to say that he knew where Hugo Gramajo and Aaron Ochoa were hidden and that he could bring the still free student leaders to them.