The Soul of Catholic Higher Education

Everyone realizes higher education is in crisis—and nowhere is this crisis more urgent than among Catholic institutions. Among the many dynamics that Catholic higher ed is forced to reckon with is the valuing of college degrees only on financial terms. Student debt increases, so people worry if the degree is worth it. Will they get a job? Will they get a job that pays enough to cover their debt? Major news outlets run stories asking, "Was your degree really worth it?" and "Is College Worth It?"

This is not an environment in which Catholic colleges and universities thrive. Catholic higher education holds that students should have more than job training. They should have an opportunity to learn and think about themselves, their families and neighbors, the common good, and the transcendent end of humanity. Catholic education is not just about getting a job but also about living a meaningful life, about educating the whole person. Trying to maintain this approach in higher education, however, is extremely difficult when nothing seems to matter but money.

Too many Catholic schools have bought into this narrow economic focus and have aligned their programs with employment trends, while focusing marketing efforts on the employment rates of their graduates. They have suppressed their religious identity to remove any obstacle to student recruitment. And yet this is not working. Schools are still closing at the rate of about five per year.

This book proposes a different model for addressing the struggles of Catholic higher education. Based on the author's Higher Education Holistic Impact Report (HIR), it sees the soul of Catholic higher education in the areas where their graduates come out ahead: meaningful lives, community engagement, and ethical decision making. Then, drawing from the author's previous research, Jason King takes a bottom-up approach that focuses on what shapes students. Doing so enables the different ways that the soul of Catholic higher education can be embodied on Catholic campuses and pushes back against the narrow, financial view of higher education that has become part of the identity of Catholic institutions.