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Catholic Universities
We plan to progressively provide analysis of Catholic higher education on this website. For colleges and universities in the United States, this will be done through a Directory with data and analysis on specific themes. The term ‘college’ is used in the American understanding of the term, whereby a college is a (small) university.
We welcome your ideas for the type of research that we should conduct.
Note: Bishop John Carroll, SJ (photo), founded Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic university in the United States.
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Choosing the right university for one's education requires access to information. Multiple university rankings are available today. These rankings can be useful, but they can also have perverse effects. We do not provide rankings on this website, but we aim to make information on Catholic universities more easily available to help inform the choice of those considering enrolling. We also provide general advice on the decision to go to university, and how to compare different universities with available data.
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Directory of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the US
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In some countries, those considering enrolling in a Catholic university may have a choice between a few universities or none at all. In the United States, they have a choice between well above 200 Catholic colleges and universities. In 2018, of 6.5 million students enrolled in Catholic post-secondary institutions globally, 1.3 million were enrolled in the United States. If one considers only university students, the country accounted for 22 percent of all students enrolled in Catholic universities globally (0.9 million of a total of 4.2 million, including students pursuing ecclesiastical studies).
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The Directory of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the United States was prepared as a resource for high school counselors and prospective students considering applying for a Catholic college or university in the United States. The introduction to the Directory discusses four basic sequential questions that prospective students may ask themselves: (1) Should I go to college?; (2) How should I select a college?; (3) How can I compare different colleges?; and finally (4) Should I go to a Catholic college? The directory also includes a short annex with basic advice for international students and a statistical annex with key variables of interest for prospective students from the College Scorecard.
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Directory of Catholic Colleges and Universities in the United States
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