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Thomas Aquinas College Ranked Among Top Liberal Arts Colleges

(August 18, 2006)

SANTA PAULA, Calif.—On August 21st, the "America's Best Colleges" edition of U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT will be available on newsstands across the country and Thomas Aquinas College once again finds itself counted among the top performing liberal arts colleges.

U.S. News & World Report employed a multitude of factors such as cost, graduation rates, and up to 15 other indicators of academic excellence, including high SAT scores, in compiling its "Best Liberal Arts College" list. Of the top one hundred liberal arts colleges highlighted, Thomas Aquinas College is ranked 73rd, one of only four Catholic liberal arts colleges to break into the top one hundred.

In U.S. News' "Great Schools, Great Price" segment, Thomas Aquinas College placed 36th, and is the only Catholic institution ranked in this category. A College's standing here is determined by several criteria - a school's overall score in the America's Best College survey, the net cost to a student receiving the average need-based scholarship or grant, percentages of undergraduates receiving financial aid, and the average percentage of costs covered by that financial aid.

In a ranking important to prospective students and their parents, Thomas Aquinas College was in the top twenty five liberal arts colleges where graduates incur the least amount of debt. Finally, in the category of "Highest Proportion of Classes under 20 Students," Thomas Aquinas College placed first with 98%, a statistic that speaks to the College's continued allegiance to its curriculum of great books and the seminar discussion structure of the Socratic Method. Again, Thomas Aquinas College was the only Catholic institution singled out in these last two categories.

The 2007 US News & World Report edition of "America's Best Colleges" is further evidence that the Thomas Aquinas College's commitment to the great books, a demanding curriculum, and the belief that faith and reason are complementary, continues to flourish.

About Thomas Aquinas College:
Thomas Aquinas College is a four-year Catholic liberal arts college exclusively devoted to the study of the Great Books, using only the Socratic method of dialogue in all of its classes. There are no text books, no lectures and no electives. Instead, the College offers an entirely integrated curriculum using only the original texts of the greatest thinkers who have helped shape Western Civilization. These authors include St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Euclid, Dante, Galileo, Descartes, our American Founding Fathers, Adam Smith, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton to name a few.

Thomas Aquinas College graduates consistently excel in the many world-class institutions where they pursue graduate degrees in such disciplines professions as law, medicine, business, theology and education. They have distinguished themselves in these fields serving as headmasters, business owners, lawyers, priests, doctors, military service men and women, educators and college presidents.