The Best Catholic Colleges in the U.S

[Joe_5859]

The thing about this list is that it is probably a terrible idea to attend any one of these colleges, save maybe Providence College, insofar as these are not what we might want to call good colleges or universities.

Now, we might ask ourselves why people go to college in the first place and the answer we should probably get to is that it is a good place to acquire requisite skills for a professional life. Isn’t that the hope? Go to college, acquire applicable skills and then seek our entry level positions, internships or go to professional school?

This being the case, the reason I say that these schools are not “good” is because they don’t fit the intended model above very well. So while they might have some theology faculty who are actual practicing Catholics this really ought not concern students very much.

Besides, this list is only relative to other Catholic universities with regards to faithfulness and in no way presupposes the kind of perfection we would all want from a Catholic school. Franciscan University has a very large portion of faculty, staff, and even high level administration that are not in fact representative of the sort of Catholicism we would want to believe permeates the school in every way. Indeed, many are not even Catholic at all. Just examine various departments, outside of theology/philosophy, and you will see that most professors are just Ohio steel valley locals in need of a job.

Since not even these schools offer what we’re looking for, in this respect, they should not be regarded as being very desirable for us or “good”. Indeed, I think that Franciscan is a kind of scam and that your a sucker if you fall for it. I fell for it! (Worst mistake of my life)

People have a needless fear of state schools and higher ranked private schools but they shouldn’t. Your children, now adults, are going off to start their professional lives and not attend a religious retreat. They need to be able to learn to take Christ with them where ever that may lead them because once they are out of college they are going to enter a highly hostile world as it pertains to religion. It is better to learn about that world and how to wrestle with it sooner rather than later. You can always study your Catechism on your own time!

I’m not sure why you have had such a sour experience with FUS (I think we crossed paths on such a thread a while back on this subject). I would say that I do not think your experience is representative of the norm. At least, it is not consistent with the experience of any FUS student I have ever known.

I get your point about not being afraid of state schools. I went to a state school for undergrad myself. But I don’t think that every 18 yo is ready for trial-by-fire. It is only because of the stellar Catholic presence on that otherwise secular campus that I walked away with any faith at all. Without that presence, I would have probably gone the way of most academics and completely abandoned my Catholicism–at least for a time (though perhaps curiosity and study would have eventually brought me back).

The presence of a vibrant Catholic community is extremely important for college age people. We can’t expect them to go it alone. College age is a very formative time period. Having a solid Catholic backdrop isn’t a bad thing. The trials will come soon enough. I would rather my children be as equipped as possible and ready to face them than to receive simultaneous culture shocks on all fronts (away from home for the first time, away from a good Catholic community for the first time, etc.).

But then, I think my primary job as a parent is to get my kids to heaven, not to prepare them for successful careers climbing the corporate ladder at a Forbes 500 company.

 

[Havard]

College age is a very formative time period. Having a solid Catholic backdrop isn’t a bad thing. The trials will come soon enough. I would rather my children be as equipped as possible and ready to face them than to receive simultaneous culture shocks on all fronts (away from home for the first time, away from a good Catholic community for the first time, etc.).

But then, I think my primary job as a parent is to get my kids to heaven, not to prepare them for successful careers climbing the corporate ladder at a Forbes 500 company.

You can do both.

Despite the growing anti-Notre Dame bandwagon, there is a thriving orthodox community on campus. Campus organizations such as The Children of Mary, Jus Vitae, Knights of Columbus, Militia Immaculata, Orestes Brownson Council , Right To Life, the St. Thomas More Society and many other active groups only hint at the strength of the orthodox community. And there are many amazing orthodox professors who are more than happy to mentor bright young kids.

 

[Domer1997]

I respectfully disgree with you, Corki. The home page is for faculty, staff, current students, alumni, parents, and potential students. One could even argue that the home page is maintained the least for potential students because almost every college home page has a special link for prospective students, which is normally a combination (or, at the very least, provides links to) the ‘About Us’ section, application procedures, and sometimes general fact sheets/FAQs.

A quick scan of several well-known non-Catholic colleges (Duke, Syracuse, UVA) shows no mention of mission or purpose on their home pages (the first 2 are private, UVA is public, and this information isn’t even presented). Also, a scan of other Catholic colleges (Notre Dame, dePaul, and Xavier) shows similar lack of a Catholic mission statement or some other definitive Catholic identity. Granted, the schools at the top of the ‘Best’ list say ‘A Catholic University’ or something of that sort, but Mount Saint Mary’s only lists ‘faith’ on its homepage.

My point is that I don’t think it is a warning sign for the word ‘Catholic’ to not be on the home page because that information is still readily available on their websites, specifically the information geared towards prospective students.

Lol…there’s no way you looked very closely at Notre Dame’s website. I cannot speak for the other two schools’ sits, but the ND site is loaded with the school’s Catholic commitment. www.nd.edu
nd.edu/faith-and-service/

I suggest you look again

 

[Corki]

In all fairness, these schools cater towards Catholics, mostly orthodox Catholics. Schools such as BC, St. John’s, and others have large non-Catholic populations, so putting this information front and center on the webpage could be a turn-off to many potential applicants. Excluding it from the home page doesn’t mean they are hiding their identity.

Not to be rude but – duh! The link in the OP was about the most Catholic Catholic Colleges and Universities. A school that targets its marketing to be especially inclusive of non-Catholic potential students should not be surprised or disappointed to not make this particular list.

 

[Corki]

The thing about this list is that it is probably a terrible idea to attend any one of these colleges, save maybe Providence College, insofar as these are not what we might want to call good colleges or universities.

Now, we might ask ourselves why people go to college in the first place and the answer we should probably get to is that it is a good place to acquire requisite skills for a professional life. Isn’t that the hope? Go to college, acquire applicable skills and then seek our entry level positions, internships or go to professional school?

This being the case, the reason I say that these schools are not “good” is because they don’t fit the intended model above very well. So while they might have some theology faculty who are actual practicing Catholics this really ought not concern students very much.

I know many graduates of the schools on this list. None has had any problem starting their careers or being accepted at the graduate school of their choice. Since most of these schools are smaller than the big state universities, students tend to zero in on what they are looking for sooner in their college time. I attended a very large university which is well-known for all of its pre-professional programs (pre-med, pre-law and engineering especially) but there was a very low rate of students having a career position 6 months after graduation. And way too many students graduated with degrees in “General Studies” having been seduced by the zillion choices and never settling down.

People have a needless fear of state schools and higher ranked private schools but they shouldn’t. Your children, now adults, are going off to start their professional lives and not attend a religious retreat. They need to be able to learn to take Christ with them where ever that may lead them because once they are out of college they are going to enter a highly hostile world as it pertains to religion. It is better to learn about that world and how to wrestle with it sooner rather than later. You can always study your Catechism on your own time

This is a good point. Many state schools have very vibrant Catholic communities. Texas A&M is said to send more students to seminary than any university in the country. One of the lists in the original survey is “LEAST UNFRIENDLY TO FAITH
AMONG THE TOP SECULAR SCHOOLS” which is an interesting way to look at it. As a parent, I don’t want to pay a school to tear down my childs faith but I don’t necessarity expect them to validate it either (unless it’s a Catholic university).

 

[JKsoren]

I know many graduates of the schools on this list. None has had any problem starting their careers or being accepted at the graduate school of their choice. Since most of these schools are smaller than the big state universities, students tend to zero in on what they are looking for sooner in their college time. I attended a very large university which is well-known for all of its pre-professional programs (pre-med, pre-law and engineering especially) but there was a very low rate of students having a career position 6 months after graduation. And way too many students graduated with degrees in “General Studies” having been seduced by the zillion choices and never settling down.

This is a good point. Many state schools have very vibrant Catholic communities. Texas A&M is said to send more students to seminary than any university in the country. One of the lists in the original survey is “LEAST UNFRIENDLY TO FAITH
AMONG THE TOP SECULAR SCHOOLS” which is an interesting way to look at it. As a parent, I don’t want to pay a school to tear down my childs faith but I don’t necessarity expect them to validate it either (unless it’s a Catholic university).

I’ve heard these sort of anecdotal accounts numerous times from people who want to validate these schools: “well, I know people who went there and they went into the job or graduate school of their choice”.

As a general principle this is nearly impossible for me to swallow because it flies in diametric opposition to my own lived experience regarding schools like FUS. Literally not a single person of the many people I knew there could boast either of those claims. I had about six close friends that were aiming for PhDs after the MA and not one of us was admitted anywhere. These are top students I’m talking about. Most of us are high-school teachers or are now busy doing other things that don’t pay off our debts well. One guy, who I didn’t know very well, did get into Marquette but he is the only one I ever heard pull this off and even he didn’t get into a “school of choice”.

Now grad school in the humanities is very hard to swing these days but FUS’s program is so far afield what you would need in order to be competitive in the application process that attending really hurts your chances of making it into good schools. I used to think, like everyone at FUS, that this was largely due to persecution but now I realize that almost no one in academia has even heard of the school. Even good Catholics I know don’t really know about the school or its theology program. Maybe they didn’t watch as much EWTN as the rest of us?

Anyway it’s not just with regards to grad school but I have friends from the counseling program too who have also found it hard to make due outside of the Steubenville area. I know another guy who’s turned to selling multi-level marketing products in an attempt to make due. I have a good friend who has embarked on a second BS in nursing because her original BS in nursing from FUS is essentially worthless when it comes to her particular career goals. I know a few who have gone on to other graduate or professional schools but none that you could even jokingly refer to as “choice” and I have serious doubts about how repeating the same mistake will help them in the future.

My friends from UCLA were different: one is now a doctor, another a pharmacist, another is finishing his PhD at Notre Dame, another is statistician, another works for the government doing intelligence work, and so on. I’m the only fool who decided that going to become a Catholic apologist, for the Lord, at FUS was a good idea. Who needs a good career path when I have blind idealism to lean on? I’m pretty sure now that God never wanted me to be blind in this matter. We need good Catholics doing things that will feed and clothe their children just as much as we need DREs and high school teachers.

I think it is possible that people can go to FUS, suffer the consequences of doing so, and retroactively rename their situation as being “choice” but this is definitely not a launching pad for a successful career in anything that I know of.

I have no idea how going to a smaller college is supposed to translate into a focussed plan for after college but I am glad that doing so worked out for some people. I don’t think a lot of FUS students do well in that regard however and, in fact, most of them major in something completely worthless from a practical standpoint such as theology, philosophy or “Catholic Humanities” and I can tell you that, really, none of these departments is all that good. Honestly, it would have made much more sense for them to pay less money, go to a good state school, get involved in an orthodox Catholic student group (there are many, we had one at UCLA if you can believe it), major in something that had a purpose, and get a library card so they could check out the Confession of St. Augustine and read it in their own time. That’s a plan that makes sense to me.

 

[Romanova]

I have no idea how going to a smaller college is supposed to translate into a focussed plan for after college but I am glad that doing so worked out for some people. I don’t think a lot of FUS students do well in that regard however and, in fact, most of them major in something completely worthless from a practical standpoint such as theology, philosophy or “Catholic Humanities” and I can tell you that, really, none of these departments is all that good. Honestly, it would have made much more sense for them to pay less money, go to a good state school, get involved in an orthodox Catholic student group (there are many, we had one at UCLA if you can believe it), major in something that had a purpose, and get a library card so they could check out the Confession of St. Augustine and read it in their own time. That’s a plan that makes sense to me.

I don’t think going to a small private school is a bad idea, necessarily. There are plenty of small schools out there that offer quality educations, some of which are religious schools. I think the key is to look not only at an institution’s religious leanings, but also to look at the quality of its educational programs. I think you are right that choosing a school based only on its Catholicity does have the potential to backfire, and parents and students would be wise to look at both religious and educational strength.

 

[Corki]

JKsoren,

I am sorry you had a bad experience at FUS. But I fail to see how you have extrapolated that experience and made a generality about all of the schools on the list. Some of those schools have excellent reputations in academia. For example U of Dallas, St. Thomas and Benedictine crank out top scholars in multiple fields as well as send students on to other institutions. Just because FUS isn’t well known, and I agree it struggles with name recognition, doesn’t mean all these schools have the same problem.

You have also changed your argument a bit. Whether a school prepares students for their chosen career is a different argument than whether a school is a good spring board for graduate work elsewhere. For example, the education grads from St. Thomas are litterally fought over in the greater Houston area. Benedictine has a top notch nursing program and Providence has a well-known and well-respected BBA.

As with most everything else in education - “best” is defined by your personal situation and needs.

 

[Joe_5859]

I’ve heard these sort of anecdotal accounts numerous times from people who want to validate these schools: “well, I know people who went there and they went into the job or graduate school of their choice”.

I’m sorry you had such a bad experience (which is also an anecdotal account to those of us who aren’t you ).

I know many FUS grads that have gone on to get PhDs, work for diocesan offices, etc. I’m trying to think of any I know that had their career/academic choices shot down and I cannot think of any offhand.

I’m not sure why your experience is so vastly different from mine.

If you know what you want to do going into college, it certainly is a good idea to do your research as to how best to achieve that goal and which school will best prepare you for it. FUS isn’t for everyone.

I don’t mean to downplay or belittle your experience. If that’s what happened to you and your circle of friends, I certainly cannot argue with it. I just don’t want others to walk away with the impression that every single person who goes to FUS is up the creek without a paddle when they graduate. I don’t think that’s an accurate of fair representation. My experience indicates otherwise.

 

[GaryTaylor]

So what happened to Holy Cross in Worcester Mass.?

just off the top of my head there is also…

Fairfied University, Fairfield CT
Sacred Heart University, Bpt, CT

 

[JKsoren]

I’m sorry you had such a bad experience (which is also an anecdotal account to those of us who aren’t you ).

I know many FUS grads that have gone on to get PhDs, work for diocesan offices, etc. I’m trying to think of any I know that had their career/academic choices shot down and I cannot think of any offhand.

I’m not sure why your experience is so vastly different from mine.

If you know what you want to do going into college, it certainly is a good idea to do your research as to how best to achieve that goal and which school will best prepare you for it. FUS isn’t for everyone.

I don’t mean to downplay or belittle your experience. If that’s what happened to you and your circle of friends, I certainly cannot argue with it. I just don’t want others to walk away with the impression that every single person who goes to FUS is up the creek without a paddle when they graduate. I don’t think that’s an accurate of fair representation. My experience indicates otherwise.

Can you be more specific about all these professionals and PhDs that you know from FUS because I find that very hard to believe. I want to believe you but just telling me that it is so is not enough. Also, I know that what I have said is anecdotal, my point was to demonstrate that the anecdotal evidence aimed at me was not even remotely corroborated by own experience which is an entirely valid point (anecdotal evidence remains evidence despite being non-scientific). I wish I had good data about placement from FUS but, alas, none exists as far as I know. Also, you can’t support a family by working at a diocesan office. Those jobs are usually part time and pay like $20,000 a year. You can’t responsibly raise a Catholic family and be a diocesan worker.

I did do research and, in addition to ideologically blind advice similar to what’s being spread on this forum, I had every reason to believe that going to FUS for an MA in theology was a good idea and that going to another school was a bad idea. Indeed FUS was very eager that I come and experience all that they claimed to be able to offer me and other prospective students. It was going to be passionately Catholic and yet academically challenging at the same time.

I even had an acquaintance in college, who left UCLA to go to FUS and came back to visit, tell our Catholic group about how we should do the same. We would serve the Lord better if we just quit our current “worldly” school and chase the dream at FUS. Luckily I didn’t listen and finished my real degree. That same guy went on to a charismatic order of priests, all pumped just like many FUS students are pumped, but the last I heard he left the order and was living with his parents in California. He’s like a living symbol for how the school works and for the kind of post-FUS stories I’ve heard which often involves not knowing what to do next and moving back home. This sounds crazy but it’s true. Oddly, I would point out, a lot of people actually walk away from the faith entirely once they leave FUS. Indeed it is arguable that the only semblance of faith they ever had was a specter generated by the intense peer pressure at FUS. There is even a blog about it on an ex-Christian website where alumni post their FUS stories and how they left the Church. FUS is not the guarantee or spiritual safe guard that people say.

The students are Catholic, mostly, and the theology/philosophy department is Catholic, mostly, but the school just is NOT on the whole what it says it is and it is definitely not academically rigorous.

That’s essentially my problem. That people keep praising it, pretending it is a Holy place where your kids will be safe, recommending it on lists etc, when none of the glowing things said about it are actually true.

I keep telling people to do this but it seems like no one actually checks: just look at faculty profiles for their different departments and you’ll see that most people working at the school are not passionate Catholics (outside theology and philosophy) or even very qualified to teach college. For the amount of money FUS charges that is totally absurd! Mostly they are just locals, i.e. not passionate imports like most of the students, who want or need the jobs (I guess actual passionate Catholics don’t want the jobs and I can’t blame them). The same is true for most of the administration and the trustees. They are often local politicians and businessmen who make bank off of our blind idealism. It’s a scam.

 

[JKsoren]

JKsoren,

I am sorry you had a bad experience at FUS. But I fail to see how you have extrapolated that experience and made a generality about all of the schools on the list. Some of those schools have excellent reputations in academia. For example U of Dallas, St. Thomas and Benedictine crank out top scholars in multiple fields as well as send students on to other institutions. Just because FUS isn’t well known, and I agree it struggles with name recognition, doesn’t mean all these schools have the same problem.

You have also changed your argument a bit. Whether a school prepares students for their chosen career is a different argument than whether a school is a good spring board for graduate work elsewhere. For example, the education grads from St. Thomas are litterally fought over in the greater Houston area. Benedictine has a top notch nursing program and Providence has a well-known and well-respected BBA.

As with most everything else in education - “best” is defined by your personal situation and needs.

What evidence do you have to suggest that the University of Dallas is a good school? Their philosophy department is widely regarded as being poor insofar as academics or scholarship are concerned. It’s fringe even for Catholics. In fact the Hirsch ranking of philosophy graduate departments, which ranks schools by their scholarly output, puts Dallas dead last on a list of over 100 universities and colleges. St Thomas in Houston isn’t that much higher.

I am not sure why you think St Thomas grads are fought over in or the other things that you claim. St. Thomas is a nominally Catholic school anyway and I have no idea why it’s even on the silly list of faithful schools.

I’m also not sure why you make a distinction between being prepared for a job and being prepared for academia when in fact being prepared for academia is entailed by being prepared for a job. At UCLA both, naturally, were not uncommon. My closest friend at the time got into Notre Dame’s philosophy department (one of the best in the country) and a number of other departments. At FUS we’d pop open a bottle of champagne if one of our best students got into an obscure SUNY philosophy department with little or no hope of subsequent job placement. It’s not that my UCLA friend was intrinsically superior either, it was that he had the right degree from the right institution that made him competitive in all of the right ways.

 

[JKsoren]

I don’t think going to a small private school is a bad idea, necessarily. There are plenty of small schools out there that offer quality educations, some of which are religious schools. I think the key is to look not only at an institution’s religious leanings, but also to look at the quality of its educational programs. I think you are right that choosing a school based only on its Catholicity does have the potential to backfire, and parents and students would be wise to look at both religious and educational strength.

I like what you say here but there is just one problem that I have with it. As far as I am concerned, there just are no universities in existence that are good enough at fulfilling both. Thus, insofar as going to college is about making your way in the world, I am inclined to say that you should not consider whether or not a school is very religious at all. The best Catholic universities are apostate, true, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of great Catholics there anyway (which sheds doubt on the claim that they are indeed apostate) and therefore you still ought to consider them as viable options.

The best school “for you” is the best school you can get into. Read the college rankings and take them to heart because the whole world does regardless of whatever your ideological stance over and against such rankings.

These schools are underfunded (non-funded!) disasters that will not give you the kind of future access held by the vast majority of people who went to schools people have actually heard of. Who’s going to consider a Belmont Abbey graduate over a University of Texas or Rice University degree, etc?

 

[Joe_5859]

Can you be more specific about all these professionals and PhDs that you know from FUS because I find that very hard to believe. I want to believe you but just telling me that it is so is not enough. Also, I know that what I have said is anecdotal, my point was to demonstrate that the anecdotal evidence aimed at me was not even remotely corroborated by own experience which is an entirely valid point (anecdotal evidence remains evidence despite being non-scientific). I wish I had good data about placement from FUS but, alas, none exists as far as I know. Also, you can’t support a family by working at a diocesan office. Those jobs are usually part time and pay like $20,000 a year. You can’t responsibly raise a Catholic family and be a diocesan worker.

I did do research and, in addition to ideologically blind advice similar to what’s being spread on this forum, I had every reason to believe that going to FUS for an MA in theology was a good idea and that going to another school was a bad idea. Indeed FUS was very eager that I come and experience all that they claimed to be able to offer me and other prospective students. It was going to be passionately Catholic and yet academically challenging at the same time.

I even had an acquaintance in college, who left UCLA to go to FUS and came back to visit, tell our Catholic group about how we should do the same. We would serve the Lord better if we just quit our current “worldly” school and chase the dream at FUS. Luckily I didn’t listen and finished my real degree. That same guy went on to a charismatic order of priests, all pumped just like many FUS students are pumped, but the last I heard he left the order and was living with his parents in California. He’s like a living symbol for how the school works and for the kind of post-FUS stories I’ve heard which often involves not knowing what to do next and moving back home. This sounds crazy but it’s true. Oddly, I would point out, a lot of people actually walk away from the faith entirely once they leave FUS. Indeed it is arguable that the only semblance of faith they ever had was a specter generated by the intense peer pressure at FUS. There is even a blog about it on an ex-Christian website where alumni post their FUS stories and how they left the Church. FUS is not the guarantee or spiritual safe guard that people say.

The students are Catholic, mostly, and the theology/philosophy department is Catholic, mostly, but the school just is NOT on the whole what it says it is and it is definitely not academically rigorous.

That’s essentially my problem. That people keep praising it, pretending it is a Holy place where your kids will be safe, recommending it on lists etc, when none of the glowing things said about it are actually true.

I keep telling people to do this but it seems like no one actually checks: just look at faculty profiles for their different departments and you’ll see that most people working at the school are not passionate Catholics (outside theology and philosophy) or even very qualified to teach college. For the amount of money FUS charges that is totally absurd! Mostly they are just locals, i.e. not passionate imports like most of the students, who want or need the jobs (I guess actual passionate Catholics don’t want the jobs and I can’t blame them). The same is true for most of the administration and the trustees. They are often local politicians and businessmen who make bank off of our blind idealism. It’s a scam.

I am being deliberately vague because I don’t want to fall into gossip or name-dropping (which I would have to do if I wanted to corroborate my anecdotes), but I will try to be as specific as I feel I can be.

Come to think of it, I’ll just send you a PM instead. I will publicly state again that I disagree with you that FUS is a scam and leave it at that for this thread.

 

[Romanova]

I like what you say here but there is just one problem that I have with it. As far as I am concerned, there just are no universities in existence that are good enough at fulfilling both. Thus, insofar as going to college is about making your way in the world, I am inclined to say that you should not consider whether or not a school is very religious at all. The best Catholic universities are apostate, true, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of great Catholics there anyway (which sheds doubt on the claim that they are indeed apostate) and therefore you still ought to consider them as viable options.

Well, I didn’t say specifically Catholic institutions, necessarily. There are many fine Protestant colleges (with varying degrees of respect for Catholic students).

I agree with you that there are thriving Catholic communities at many other schools besides the ones on this list. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned Texas A&M, and I’ve also heard good things about the University of Pittsburgh Newman Center and a few others. When my children reach the college-searching age, I will advise them to look at the quality of education at a particular institution, but also to look at the opportunities for fellowship with other Catholics – fellowship that might be on- or off-campus.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

JKsoren,

I think you make a good number of valid points.

However, is it fair to call Franciscan University a scam? First: every University has to promote its cause. They can’t say “well, we really don’t measure up academically.” This isn’t to say that they have freedom to lie to students and tell them they rank at such-and-such when they don’t.

Second: is it possible that you ran afoul of some overzealous promoters/recruiters? In other words are the representations made to you by the people who made them enough to indict the entire University as a whole as running a scam?

Franciscan does hold itself out as academically challenging. I think it is a fair representation. But, I haven’t seen it hold itself out as a stepping stone to serious higher education (or at least not as a relatively efficacious stepping stone).

But, in the end, you are right that people who go there and who send their children there should be aware of what exactly they hope to gain. Some programs are stronger than others (nursing?) and a bunch are probably weaker.

What is disconcerting to me is the idea that we ought to settle for strong Catholic schools but not strong schools that are also strong Catholic schools. That is a mistake in my opinion. There are other who have made a critique about the so-called “Catholic ghetto” phenomenon (i.e. in art, etc). This is where we settle for something less then stellar just because it happens to be orthodox. Why should we do this?

It always occurs to me in discussions like this that in the Middle Ages the monks who made farming advances were really good at farming. And the beer they made was really excellent. And the engineers who built cathedrals were top of their field.

It wouldn’t have worked if their product was mediocre compared to the secular world, or other religious bodies, or other cultures. Have we lost that mindset? Catholic Universities should be the best universities with the best instructors.

VC

 

[manualman]

JKsoren, your ongoing contempt for FUS is well noted and persistant, we get it.

Thing is, you’re pretty much the only one I’ve ever heard to say so. I spent a year with NET ministries (surely you know what that it), so I know dozens of FUS grads. None of them agree with you. None are living in cardboard boxes or momma’s couch.

It appears to me that part of your complaint is not specifically about FUS, but about not recognizing your own career goals in time. If your goal for a master’s program is to spring board into a doctoral program, your complaint is true of nearly ANY tiny specialty college. PhD programs are simply brutally hard to get into and the rep of the school you came from absolutely counts. FUS is NOT big in the larger academia “snooty scale.”

But I call utter BS on the inability of their nursing school grads to get good jobs, I know of a friend with an accounting degree there that became the head of the department in her company within 5 years of being hired. I have a Big Ten university BS in engineering and I will tell you that I might have gotten good technical training, but that accountant I just mentioned got one heck of a better overall education than I did. Literature, history, philosophy, theology. Accountants (and engineers) don’t have to take such a rigorous courseload in the secular university system that they do at FUS. It might not have been what got her the job, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the overall educational quality (plus some admittedly good smarts) is why her employer valued her.

Sorry, but you are way too much of a data outlier for me to find you credible. Sorry you found it such a bad fit for your own goals.

(And LOL on the otherwise unemployed steel workers as professors. You’re too much)

 

[PatriceA]

Well, I didn’t say specifically Catholic institutions, necessarily. There are many fine Protestant colleges (with varying degrees of respect for Catholic students).

I agree with you that there are thriving Catholic communities at many other schools besides the ones on this list. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned Texas A&M, and I’ve also heard good things about the University of Pittsburgh Newman Center and a few others. When my children reach the college-searching age, I will advise them to look at the quality of education at a particular institution, but also to look at the opportunities for fellowship with other Catholics – fellowship that might be on- or off-campus.

Pitt’s Newman Center is very good. Its also practically “next door” to the cathedral for the Pittsburgh Diocese.

But as far as the FUS arguement that is taking place. I would bet you will find someone that has had a bad experience at any college, ANY, even the most Catholic ones. I would also bet you will find a few Catholics that had a really great experience at the most liberal of colleges. I have quite a few friends as well that attended FUS, a majority of them are in good paying jobs and look back fondly on their FUS experience. One or two wished they had gone someplace else. I went to a different Catholic university near Pittsburgh and I could write a vicious post about my experience at that university, but I won’t because it could be many things that lead to my particular bad experience. It could be a little bit of what I was like at the time, not discerning more my options, and maybe I feel through the cracks at the university. I’ve had debates with people that transferred between the college I attended and FUS and there are just as many different opinions about which university is better than the other.

It comes down to personal discernment and not all kids are a perfect fit for a great Catholic college. Some kids and their parents just don’t take the time to really do their homework and investigate what is the best higher learning place for THEM and them alone. But as a parent myself now, looking back, the list provided in the OP would at least be a jumping off point for when my daughter might be thinking of where she would like to attend college, if that’s what she decides to do after high school.

 

[JKsoren]

Well, I didn’t say specifically Catholic institutions, necessarily. There are many fine Protestant colleges (with varying degrees of respect for Catholic students).

I agree with you that there are thriving Catholic communities at many other schools besides the ones on this list. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned Texas A&M, and I’ve also heard good things about the University of Pittsburgh Newman Center and a few others. When my children reach the college-searching age, I will advise them to look at the quality of education at a particular institution, but also to look at the opportunities for fellowship with other Catholics – fellowship that might be on- or off-campus.

The University of Pittsburgh’s Newman center is the best I have ever seen. My wife and I would attend Mass there regularly (they call it the Oratory) and we miss the place very much. The priests are awesome, the people are awesome, the liturgy is awesome. Pitt and Carnegie Mellon are very nice schools as well. Pitt is also one of the English speaking world’s most prestigious philosophy departments, though I am not sure how happy faithful Christians would be if they were doing graduate work there.

 

[JKsoren]

Pitt’s Newman Center is very good. Its also practically “next door” to the cathedral for the Pittsburgh Diocese.

But as far as the FUS arguement that is taking place. I would bet you will find someone that has had a bad experience at any college, ANY, even the most Catholic ones. I would also bet you will find a few Catholics that had a really great experience at the most liberal of colleges. I have quite a few friends as well that attended FUS, a majority of them are in good paying jobs and look back fondly on their FUS experience. One or two wished they had gone someplace else. I went to a different Catholic university near Pittsburgh and I could write a vicious post about my experience at that university, but I won’t because it could be many things that lead to my particular bad experience. It could be a little bit of what I was like at the time, not discerning more my options, and maybe I feel through the cracks at the university. I’ve had debates with people that transferred between the college I attended and FUS and there are just as many different opinions about which university is better than the other.

It comes down to personal discernment and not all kids are a perfect fit for a great Catholic college. Some kids and their parents just don’t take the time to really do their homework and investigate what is the best higher learning place for THEM and them alone. But as a parent myself now, looking back, the list provided in the OP would at least be a jumping off point for when my daughter might be thinking of where she would like to attend college, if that’s what she decides to do after high school.

All the talk about finding “the right fit” when it comes to college is inflated nonsense and, if pushed to it, I doubt that anyone would be able to define what it is they supposedly mean when they talk in such a way. The “right fit” for everyone is the best university they can get accepted to. A school with: good professors, good students, good resources, good outcomes, good opportunities. It’s that simple.

Take note however: there are far more bad colleges than good ones. FUS is just one of many.

This is why rankings like the US News and World Report exist in the first place. They help people quickly discern bad schools from the good schools. I say aim for a top 50 nationally recognized university and then consider which towns or cities that you most prefer to live in. If a big school is not your thing then aim for a top 75 liberal arts college, etc. But don’t think that you somehow need to “fit in” to the place before you can go. Indeed, coming fresh out of high school, there is little chance that you will! Really, your job as a student is to make yourself conform to the standards of the school and not the other way around. That’s why you’re going in the first place, right?

Indeed, my issue with FUS is not that “I had a bad personal experience”. In fact, in many ways I had a great personal experience! No, my issue is that the school does not satisfy the criterion for being a good university and yet we pretend that it does. That is, it is the “wrong university for you” because you want to go to a school with good professors, good students, good resources, and good outcomes. This is all, of course, regardless of what the campus looks like, where it is, and what ideological affiliations the school may have. Those are all secondary concerns at best.