Higher Education is Broken—So We Built a New Model
Higher education in the US is broken—it burdens students with large debts, gives them little or no human formation, inculcates vice rather than virtue, and prepares students to be cogs in the modern capitalist system. Instead of focusing on high-quality tangible goods, education today often promotes the anti-personal dynasty of digital relativism.
Our society requires not merely cogs in the machine of middle-management, nor mindless gears in the machine of industry but rather humans who bring dignity to the work of their hands. San Damiano College trains men principally in character, preparing them to bring dignity, purpose, and attentive craftsmanship to their work. As the world become more digitized, economies will shift toward the manual tasks only humans can achieve, and the absence of good men in these fields will be even more keenly felt.
Even in the Catholic Church, the riches of our intellectual and liturgical tradition, as they apply to human work, are little known. As in the days of St Francis, Christ is calling to us, “Go, rebuild my Church, for as you can see it is falling into ruin.”
Something needed to be done. We built San Damiano College for the Trades.
How We Repair the Five Wounds of Christ
Each of Christ’s wounds point to a particular structural damage that has afflicted the Church throughout history—damages St. Francis was called to restore while contemplating a crucifix in the Church of San Damiano—damages we, too, must redress.
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Man’s intellect has been dumbed and numbed according to the spirit of the age.
We offer intellectual enrichment through Catholic liberal arts tradition.
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The sacramental and spiritual riches of the Church’s tradition have been scorned and not faithfully handed on.
We give spiritual formation according to the heart of the Church, along with liturgical formation in accord with her authentic tradition.
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The Church has lost a sense of its own figure and shape through an attack on the dignity of its distinct vocations: holy matrimony, consecrated religious life, and ordained ministry.
We provide an active discernment program helping students discover their way toward restoring Christ’s broken body in the domestic church, repairing his battered flesh in the hierarchical church, or bearing vivid witness to his own outward way of life through the religious vows.
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Men are no longer free to walk the narrow way of Christ. Instead, nailed to their vices, alienated, and discouraged by technologically mediated relationships, they are unable to live life fully.
We offers an intentional community of life focused on direct relationship to each other and the real, where men dare to have the courage to edify and hold each other accountable to the challenges and joys of walking the narrow way that is Christ.
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Man has forgotten how to use his hands to contribute to the common good, the restoration of all things in Christ, from the soil to the stars. He has forgotten the dignity of work, and even worse, the value of leisure.
We form men in the manual trades necessary to restore, preserve, or build both historic and new structures with dignity—both ecclesiastical, civic, and domestic. Thus, men serve God and their neighbors in hope of the beatific vision to come.
Seven Things We Do Differently
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Many private Catholic Colleges need to raise 40% or more of their revenue from donations. San Damiano will cover no more than 15% of its operating expenses with donations.
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The average annual cost of college is $36,000 and rising. San Damiano limits tuition costs by putting money where it matters most. Our annual cost to attend is $25,000.
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Student often graduate with $38,000 in debt. Because our students get paid while learning their trades, San Damiano graduates students with no debt.
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Most colleges can only exist by depending on grants and loans from the federal government tied to demands that can compromise Catholic religious liberty and further support irresponsible fiscal policy. San Damiano does not rely on federal financial aid.
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Only about 50% of college graduates work in their major. San Damiano provides a two-fold solution: (1) the general great books education prepares the graduate for any career; and (2) the trade apprenticeship educates students in skills they are already using professionally before graduation.
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Even supposedly Catholic schools cannot be trusted to teach in accord with the timeless truth and worship of the Church. All San Damiano faculty, not merely theologians, take an oath of fidelity to the Catholic Church.
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Rather than a debauched free-for-all, San Damiano gives students a community life of rigorous, devout liturgy, truly edifying leisure through learning and Catholic culture, and meaningful labor in the trades.
Our Location
In 1928, the Franciscan Brothers of the Holy Cross founded St. James Trade School on a beautiful campus in Springfield, IL, serving young men who could not afford high school or college. In 1929, the Ursuline Sisters opened Springfield Junior College. Both institutions flourished, but eventually the trade school closed in 1972 and Junior College in 2014. Bishop Paprocki, Springfield’s current Ordinary, has welcomed San Damiano College as the restoration of the mission of these two schools, with the goal of integrating man’s labor with a well-examined, prayerful life.
The still-extant buildings of the original trade school stand ready, along with an adjoining campus built by the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, and with the Bishop’s blessing, the support of local tradesmen, Franciscans Brothers and Sisters, and the Norbertine religious order, San Damiano College for the Trades aims to welcome its first class in the fall of 2025 to these historic buildings.
