Catholic liberal arts college in California has nation’s ‘most conservative’ students

CNA Staff, Aug 30, 2024 / 08:00 am

Thomas Aquinas College has been ranked by the Princeton Review as having the most conservative collegiate student body in the country.

The Princeton Review selects 390 top colleges each year and then ranks them according to different categories based on student responses to surveys. 

According to student responses, Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), a small Catholic liberal arts college in southern California, ranked No. 1 in “most conservative students.” Other Catholic schools that ranked in the same category included University of Dallas (UD) at No. 6 and Assumption University, an Augustinian liberal arts school in Massachusetts, which ranked No. 20. 

TAC is known for its Socratic, discussion-based approach to education where all students major in the liberal arts. TAC doesn’t have desks in classrooms, and students call faculty “tutors,” not “professors.” 

TAC also maintains a dress code, requiring women to wear skirts or dresses during the class day and at other events, while men are required to wear slacks and collared shirts.

The Princeton Review surveys more than 160,000 U.S. undergraduate students at “the Best 390 Colleges” for their various rankings, according to its website. 

For the “most conservative” ranking, the Princeton Review asked students in a survey to answer if they were politically “far-left, Democrat, nonpartisan, Republican, or far-right.” 

But students’ conservative values are closely tied to religiosity at TAC, according to Christopher Weinkopf, executive director of college relations at TAC.

“Because TAC students are serious about their faith, they care deeply about the unborn and hold countercultural views on a number of social issues that qualify as conservative in contemporary political parlance,” Weinkopf noted. “But contemporary politics are absent from our classical curriculum, which aims at eternal truths that transcend all politics.”

“Our students seek to uphold the Church’s intellectual tradition and moral teachings, which is conservative in the truest sense of the word,” Weinkopf added. 

Several Catholic colleges also ranked high in the “most religious students” category — TAC included. TAC ranked No. 5, UD ranked No. 10, and The Catholic University of America ranked No. 14 based on student surveys. 

TAC’s campus in Santa Paula, California, features a large chapel, Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel, where Mass is celebrated several times a day. TAC also has a campus in Northfield, Massachusetts.

“Our founders were determined that, at Thomas Aquinas College, the Catholic faith would not be merely an adornment on an otherwise secular education but would be at the heart of all that we do,” Weinkopf noted.

Weinkopf said TAC’s curriculum “draws on all the major disciplines — especially mathematics, natural science, and philosophy — in the service of theology, the study of God.”

“Our chaplains offer Mass four times daily, with confessions before and after, plus regular nightly rosary and other devotions,” he noted. “And our campus rules of residence are designed to promote Christian virtue.”

On UD’s campus, the Church of the Incarnation hosts Mass at least twice a day and is adjacent to the Cistercian Abbey. The Catholic University of America, for its part, has five chapels throughout campus, including a 24-hour chapel, and Mass is celebrated several times a day.

Both UD and TAC also have distinctly happy students, according to the Princeton Review: UD ranked No. 4 in “happiest students,” while TAC ranked No. 5. TAC also ranked No. 13 in “friendliest students.”