A New Wave in Catholic Education

People are losing their admiration for higher education. A degree from Harvard or Princeton doesn’t mean much anymore, as the Ivy League falls into the slumber of woke-ism. College graduates are less and less learned and deeper in debt than ever before. Why bother spending (or borrowing) the money and time to go to college if one leaves uneducated, unemployable, and impecunious?

There is no longer a consensus about what one even goes to college for. Many believe it’s to study subjects and earn a degree that will help them get a job. For some, it’s simply an extension of adolescence. A rite of passage, it’s mainly about the experience (images from the movie Animal House come to mind). These are somewhat recent developments in the idea of higher education. For centuries, the traditional classical liberal arts education has been valued because it enables one to enter into the “Great Conversation” with the greatest minds who have gone before. The purpose is to liberate the mind to embrace truth by opening it to the wisdom of the ages, handed to us in the form of the great works of culture. It makes one more fully human.

This is not, however, what most people experience when they enroll in their local or state college, a big-name university, or even the Ivy League. Majors have proliferated to the point of such specificity that, after four years, college graduates may know a good deal about one esoteric field, with precious little (if any) wisdom tossed in—at best. At worst, they have swallowed an enormous quantity of propaganda and rejected the intellectual heritage of the past. Universities are considered “good” when they turn out identical, androgynous careerists, ready to step into the glamorous world of worker bees making the elite producers who employ them wealthy.

The good news about this bad news is that problems usually bring out solutions from creative minds. There’s a growing trend of dismissing the worth of spending four years at an increasingly expensive university to earn a degree in a meaningless major. It hardly seems worth the cost in time and money. Many more people are embracing jobs and businesses that are both necessary in every society and do not require college. What we often call trades are looking more attractive to young adults, as are artisan crafts. Entrepreneurism is very accessible in the age of the internet. 

The voices of people like Mike Rowe have been advocating for the value of hard work in jobs that keep our society going. Is there really a need for so many lawyers, financiers, managers? Not as much as there is for carpenters, electricians, mechanics, farmers—those many jobs that keep us fed, sheltered, and comfortable. Not to mention the vacuum of an ability to reason deeply in our college “educated” young adults.

Many young people are expressing the desire to get started with the most important work there is: raising a family. Young Catholic men are considering more often what work they can do that will support their future family sooner. Young Catholic women, even when highly educated and skilled, are feeling free to follow the desire in their heart to become a mother of a family. Debilitating debt is the last thing a young Catholic family needs in order to flourish. Many young people are expressing the desire to get started with the most important work there is: raising a family. Tweet This

The shift in thought among younger Catholics—and their parents—has been accompanied by a growing new wave in post-high-school education developing. There are currently at least six new institutions of higher learning that seek to meet the newly expressed needs of these young people. You may know of others; I discovered two of them while writing this short essay! Five explicitly teach trades along with humanities, one offers a two-year degree in the Classical Liberal Arts.

Reading their websites is inspiring and exciting. They hold echoes of St. Benedict’s Ora et Labora and John Senior’s sense of wonder. 

The College of St. Joseph the Worker, in Steubenville, Ohio, aims to train students in the trades of carpentry, electronics, HVAC, and plumbing while they earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Catholic Studies. The tagline on their website is, “We teach our students to think, but also to pray, to love, and to build.” Sounds like a perfect Catholic husband school! Just reading their website is an inspiring education, reminiscent of Christopher Dawson’s thoughts on the integrated humanities. Their trade portion of the program integrates paid apprenticeships that enable graduates to, upon completion of their degree, already have the knowledge, experience, and income to enter the market without the burden of debt.

Harmel Academy of the Trades, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, offers a program for aspiring tradesmen in Machine and Systems Technology. The program involves four semesters integrating work, spiritual, and intellectual life. They also offer a “gap year” track for undecided aspirants who will be introduced to the fundamentals of skilled work and spiritual maturity. Harmel is not a college but provides training as tradesmen (yes, it’s for men only), while building character and educating the mind through a four-semester cycle of courses in the humanities, connecting their work to human flourishing and the universal call to holiness. Their website proclaims, “It is time to unlock the power and beauty of Catholic Social Teaching about work—and to make it accessible to the person who needs it the most: the tradesman.”

Kateri College of the Liberal and Practical Arts, in Gallup, New Mexico, will not be opening their doors for another year, but their website will whet your appetite with images of the beautiful Southwest that give the impression the founders have had a brush with John Senior and the importance of cultivating a sense of wonder. They offer a four-year Liberal Arts degree combined with training in carpentry and construction in a Catholic “faith environment that sets the worship of God at the center of our college community.”

Santiago Trade School, in Orange County, California, trains men in fine construction skills as well as liberal arts, but it does not confer any degrees. Very little I could write would compare with these words from their website: “Our goal at Santiago is not to amass earthly riches, though our graduates will do that, nor is it to have fraternal fun, even as we will enjoy that. Santiago Trade School has the unique mission of building upon the foundations of work, study, and friendship to produce excellent Christian tradesmen. An excellent tradesman is marked by his experience at work, his wisdom in problem solving on the job, and his daily diligence to produce good works for Christ. Santiago men understand that Christian work is a sacrificial offering to Our Lord, and that only work well done is worth offering to Him.” 

American College of the Building Arts, in Charleston, South Carolina, was established in 2009 in response to the recognition of a lack of people skilled in restoration arts. While it is not Catholic and not brand new, it is worth mentioning as a college filling a need for disappearing building craftsmanship necessary for preservation of traditional buildings. They confer two-year and four-year degrees that combine the liberal arts with fine craftsmanship training. This education reflects the importance of goodness, truth, and beauty intellectually, historically, and in the physical society we build around us.

Rosary College, in Greenville, South Carolina, while not a trade school, offers another sensible new approach to a liberal arts education in the Catholic tradition. It is a non-residential college offering an Associate of Catholic Studies in Integrated Humanities with both in-person and online courses. Tuition is quite affordable and classes are held in the evenings, so students can pursue work training during the day while they receive a high-quality Catholic liberal arts education in two years. With this under their belt, they may go into practical fields or transfer their credits to continue at a four-year college. 

Rosary College also offers dual credit for high school juniors and seniors who take their courses as well as making classes available to audit at a lower rate. Being non-residential and having no physical campus (classes are held in rented space) keeps the student costs down. Making a liberal arts education faithful, rigorous, and affordable is their goal.

I suspect that the birth of these schools is just the beginning of a new trend in Catholic education and, as a result, a culture of citizens who value work and the beautiful products of their work. If you know someone who may be considering college, urge them to broaden their scope beyond deep debt for an Animal House experience and introduce them to these six institutions that offer fruitful and affordable models of meaningful higher education. They will thank you!