Rise of the New Catholic Colleges

BY TIM DRAKE

REGISTER SENIOR WRITER

September 23-29, 2007 Issue


The National Catholic Register has a rather fine article on the good done by a handful of Catholic colleges and universities. Check it by clicking on the headline above.

Here is an excerpt: "Pope John Paul II said that the only reason a Catholic institution exists is to evangelize. I would have a tough time looking at the vast majority of Catholic universities and saying that their primary goal is evangelization.”

AMSL: Oranges to Oranges

Those who monitor the progress of the Ave Maria School of Law may find it interesting to compare AMSL to both another new Catholic law school (St. Thomas, in Minneapolis), and to an established Catholic law school (Catholic University of America). Data compiled by the ABA and reported each year by Cooley Law School as a public service is below (click to see a larger image):

This information represents an objective snapshot of the school - and demonstrates that the school is doing rather well. Check out the bar-passage rate (best in the nation, and far better than both schools) and employment rate (almost equal to veteran Catholic U., and 35% better than fellow-upstart St. Thomas U.). One statistic that is not in the graphic but is in Cooley's report and is based on the ABA data: Ave Maria has the number one rating of all law schools in the country for "program achievement" (an objective measure of the effectiveness of a school's academic program).

Kudos to Dean Dobranski and the entire law school community.