Glioma is the most common and aggressive type of human primary brain tumor with a poor outcome. The molecular mechanisms underlying glioma development and progression are still poorly understood. Recent studies have reported a novel role of ARPP-19 in the regulation of cell mitosis and cancer progression. However, no study has been carried out to determine the role of ARPP-19 in human glioma cells and assess the expression and clinical significance of ARPP-19 in human glioma. In this study, we systematically examined the role of ARPP-19 in glioma A172 cells and examined the expression of ARPP-19 and CD147 in 81 cases of human glioma tissue specimens and correlated them to clinicopathological parameters and patient survival. We found that ARPP-19 promoted both proliferation and metastasis of human glioma cells and the expression of ARPP-19 and CD147 in high-grade glioma was significantly higher than that in the low-grade glioma. Patients whose tumors were positive for expression of ARPP-19 or CD147 showed lower relapse-free survival and overall survival than patients whose tumors were negative for ARPP-19 or CD147, respectively. Pearson correlation analysis indicated that there was a statistically significant correlation between ARPP-19 and CD147. Expressions of ARPP-19 and CD147 may serve as biomarkers for high-grade glioma and poor patient survival.