Choosing a Catholic College: Our Family's Newman Guide School Rule

Choosing a Catholic College: Our Family's Newman Guide School Rule

My wife and I were both public school kids all they way through high school. After some time in junior college, she got to go to a great Catholic university. I did too, the same one, but for grad school. We know, firsthand, what the difference is between public school and Catholic school. We believe in Catholic education so much that we have put our money where our mouth is. We have invested 100’s of thousands of dollars in Catholic schools so far, to give our four kids the best foundation possible.

We understand that when Catholic teens go away to secular college, the chances are way too high, that they will come back as  woke, atheistic, purple-haired marxists. For our family, that’s not an option. After 13 years of paying Catholic school tuition for four kids, there’s no way I am going to watch that formation unravel and our investment go down the drain.

Choosing a college is the most consequential decsion that they will make before marriage. So we made a deal. My wife and I would support them and co-sign on school loans as much as we could but only for a college or university that they selected from the Newman Guide to Catholic colleges. What the Newman Society says about its own mission: Founded in 1993, the mission of The Cardinal Newman Society is to promote and defend faithful Catholic education. We serve the needs of Catholic families and educators by:

-advocating and supporting fidelity to the teaching of the Catholic Church across all levels and methods of Catholic education;
-identifying and promoting clear standards of Catholic identity and best practices in Catholic education; and
-recognizing exemplary Catholic educators and institutions committed to truth and the integral formation of their students.

So far we have had expeience with three different Newman Guide schools...Three of our four teen and twenty something children have attended Catholic Schools that prioritize their Catholic Identity. The best part of their experience is the fellowship and friendships they have had. The three schools are Franciscan University of Steubenville Ohio, Thomas More College in New Hampshire and Ave Maria University in Florida. 

If you’re wondering, yes, we are taking donations! Just kidding, but yes, it means we have had to set aside any type of luxury. Vacations, boats, cruises, early retirement and new cars are not in the cards for my wife and I. We both work hard and with a tight budget, we live a rather penurious lifestyle. We are also blessed and grateful to be in the postion where we can pull it off. Again, that’s the decision we made because we want our kids to be formed as solid Catholics both in and out of the home. 

The Newman guide helped us sort out which Catholic colleges are true to their identity. Even kids who go to ‘Catholic’ colleges are not guaranteed to maintain their faith life. There are many such ‘Catholic in name only’ schools who have adopted the secular worldview and are covertly permeated with an anti-Catholic bias in the faculty and in the curriculum. I will not name names, but be warned they are plentiful. Basically, if the Catholic college didn’t make it into the Newman Guide there must be red flags. 

The quality of the academics is tremendous. These Newman Guide schools are more rigorous and more challenging than other schools, even elite Ivy League schools that no longer teach the Great Books of Western Civilization. Newman guide school students are learning how to read analytically, think deeply, write succinctly and speak eloquently. Freed from the constant drumbeat of leftist indoctination, their minds and souls are left to feed on all that is good, true and beautiful.

These schools are slowly changing the shape of Catholic education as a whole. Graduates from Newman Guide schools are leading the renewal of classical liberal arts, Great Books oriented schools. More and more, as the classical academy type K- 12 Catholic schools multiply, they siphon off kids from parochial schools and offers a legitimate alternative to homeschooling.

We have followed the Newman Guide School Rule and our teens are happy and thriving. They are coming back on fire for the Faith and teaching their parents a thing or two about living out an authentic Catholic life. It was the best investment we ever made.

Please consider the Newman Guide before you send your teens away. Do not trust secular universities and colleges, they have lost that priveledge. Send them to the best Catholic schools beacuse as Pope John Paul II wrote, the baptized Catholic deserves to receive the Faith ‘whole and entire, in all of its rigor and vigor”.