Notre Dame, like most Catholic Universities, made a move in the 1960’s to change and appoint a board of directors who were in turn making changes to the universities and colleges themselves. In part that included moving away from a strict Catholic identity and a general mandate that professors adhere to the faith.
The net result was that while many of the colleges and universities which were founded by orders were no longer run by those orders, but by a non-order board, and non-Catholic and non-believer professors were hired. They continued (to this day) to have priests, brothers, and/or sisters on staff and as teachers; but the university marches to the board of directors.
The result has been that a number of Catholics have expressed recommendations such as yours.
I suspect that anyone who would take the time to contact graduates of Notre Dame and do thorough interviews of them would find that faithful Catholics who attended ND and have graduated from there are as likely to continue to be faithful Catholics after graduating as just about any other group of faithful Catholics applying at any of a multitude of Catholic, Portestant and State schools being faithful after they graduate.
And I do not question that the President of ND (and several of them) have made what I consider to be bonehead decisions wrongly made.
In short, a kid who goes there or anywhere else with a weak or non-existent faith (as in, the kids who attend Mass because their parents require it, or have quit because their parents don’t have the backbone to require it) is likely to come out of college or university with little or no faith - somewhat like the GIGO rule.
