This emphasis on developing physical competence in a trade as part of a moral education is very Aristotelian (techne) and by extension, Aquinian, for what I vaguely remember as being the St. Thomas Aquinas and after him the Jesuits effectively reconciling Catholicism with "Hellenist" ideas, which were the classical philosphers. That's literally my depth on it though, like a bit of trivia. I spent a little time with some Jesuits and was surprised at how closely their ideas resembled classical thinking, and was completely unlike the evangelicals and secular teachers I had known. However, the school sounds pretty amazing. Outside STEM, undergrad programs seem to be producing ideologues and not builders and this college seems like an antidote to that.
Does it sound amazing? The 5 trades this school claims to serve are carpentry, plumbing, masonry, electical, and HVAC. Of 8 listed faculty, just 1 claims expertise in any of these trades --- carpentry. That instructor operates an inn in Ohio and blogs about politics. The school doesn't offer trade certifications at all, but rather a degree in Catholic studies.
By comparison, Triton College, my nearest community college, offers certifications in 3 of the 5 trades on this list. City Colleges of Chicago offer all 5. For each trade, their certification is recognized, and each trade program has a listed catalog of required and optional courses, with faculty.
Triton costs $11k (~$5k after aid). This "Catholic" college (it is unaffiliated with the church) costs $15k --- and doesn't issue a certification in 1 or 2 years (I don't think it offers one at all; you get a "Catholic studies" degree, which I doubt many plumbing companies are looking for).
This doesn't sound like an amazing deal to me. It sounds like something else.
The amazing part to me was using physical trade competence for a philosophical foundation. Is their program ideological? Absolutely, and they are pretty forthright about it. It reminded me a lot of Matthew B. Crawford's "shopclass as soulcraft," book, which riffed on the same themes of the intrinsically moral quality of competence. That's the root idea in their ideology right there, I think.
On the scam side, their church affiliation only needs approval at a fairly low level, as the Church isn't really that monolithic, it's very much a federation in which things as different as liberation theology, jesuitism, cults of saints, and even opus dei can co-exist under the same umbrella. If the objection were that this school is mainly a conservative ideological training ground, I would agree that's an accurate assessment, but I didn't get the impression that was hidden from sight, so I didn't think we needed to be oblique about characterizing it.
They don't say, "welcome to our unaccredited reactionary conservative stochastic terror indoctrination centre" because they don't define themselves in terms from critical theories that originate from (to them) an alien worldivew. I'd agree it's the something-else you are referring to, but that's what makes it interesting.
I've read Shop Class As Soulcraft, and the resemblance is superficial. Again: my issue isn't that there's ideology mixed in with the practical stuff; it's that the school is overwhelmingly staffed with ideologues that don't have credentials or practical experience with what they claim to be teaching, that the school doesn't produce a credential relevant to the trades it claims to serve, and that it costs quite a bit more than community colleges that do provide those credentials, facility, and faculty.
If they were going to a school that will be overwhelmingly staffed with ideologues that don't have credentials or practical experience with what they claim to be teaching, I would agree they could probably get a better credential from a regular state university.
A regular state university? How about just one of the 1,167 community colleges around the country, most of which have programs that specialize in getting people prepared and credentialed for these trades, and all of which cost a fraction of this organization?
