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MAKING EDUCATION AFFORDABLE
College Freezes Tuition Costs,
Caps Student Loan Debt
The Thomas Aquinas College Board of Governors has announced a freeze in the cost of tuition and room & board for the 2015-2016 academic year. The decision was made to help ease the financial burdens on students and their parents in a weak economy. Tuition will remain at $24,500, and room & board at $7,950, bringing the total cost of attendance, including books and all fees, to $32,450. That amount is well below the average of $37,948 for private institutions in the Western United States.
Keeping tuition costs in check is just one of several ways the College is able to spare its students from incurring excessive debt. According to the 2013-2014 Common Data Set, a data source used by most college surveys, members of the Thomas Aquinas Class of 2013 graduated with an average total loan debt of just $15,521 — about half the national average of $29,400.
“We limit the amount students have to borrow before they can receive institutional aid, such as work study or a grant from the College,” says Director of Financial Aid Greg Becher. Additionally, the College has a fixed curriculum, allowing students to graduate in four years. “That limits the amount students have to borrow and the amount parents have to pay for tuition,” adds Mr. Becher.
College Announces Tuition Freeze 
College Reduces Student Debt Loads
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SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER
Remembering Angela Baird (’00),
Servant of Life
By November of 1997, officials at Family Planning Associates in Ventura, California, had surely grown used to the sight of protesters. For the previous few months, students from Thomas Aquinas College had spent an hour each Thursday outside this abortion mill, praying, handing out literature, and offering counseling to the anxious clients who came and went. Typically these gatherings attracted no more than four or five participants — until November 6, that is.
Clinic staff must have been stunned, that autumn morning, to see this prayerful contingent swell to as many as 150 young men and women filling the sidewalk. The students joined in prayer, some clutching Rosary beads, and recited 15 decades.
This wasn’t merely a protest, it was a tribute. Only hours earlier, Angela Baird, the 19-year-old sophomore who had led these weekly trips to the clinic, was also clutching Rosary beads and praying for an end to abortion — as she lay dying at the bottom of a ravine following a tragic hiking accident.
Continue reading
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VATICAN NEWS
Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem. (’94), on the Family & the Synod
On the final day of the recently concluded Synod on the Family, the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published an essay about the Synod’s purpose — and its challenges — by alumnus Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem. (’94). A professor of philosophy at St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California, Fr. Sebastian argues that, “The stakes are high,” for the Synod. “For unless modern man can recapture the meaning which God has written into the natural human family, the result will be ignorance and error, indifference and animosity, toward the entire supernatural order.”
Full story
Fr. Sebastian’s article
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Rev. Sebastian Walshe, O.Praem. (’94)
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| GRADUATE SCHOOLS COME RECRUITING Ave Maria’s Tom Monaghan Makes Extraordinary Offer to TAC Seniors
As part of a series of graduate-school recruitment visits to campus, Thomas Monaghan, the onetime owner of Domino’s Pizza and the founder of Ave Maria University, recently made an extraordinary offer to members of the Senior Class: free tuition at the Ave Maria School of Law for all three years of their legal education.
The offer is part of Mr. Monaghan’s effort to make Ave Maria the preferred law school for the nation’s top Catholic lawyers. “We are planning on giving a full ride next fall to 50 students, primarily students from Newman Guide schools,” he said. “And I would love to have all 50 come from this school, because I think it’s the finest Catholic school in the country, and you guys have the perfect background for law school.”
The next day, the College hosted a visit from Dr. Ronald J. Pestritto, graduate dean and professor of politics at Hillsdale College. “I do not visit many schools, but I traveled here for the sole purpose of speaking with you about our program,” said Dr. Pestrito. “We are very happy with our TAC graduate students, and we would like more of you to join us.”
Full story: Monaghan Scholarship Offer
Full story: Hillsdale College Visit
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Tom Monaghan
Ave Maria School of Law
Hillsdale College |
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REMEMBERING DR. MCARTHUR
College Honors, Prays for Founding President
October 17 marked the first anniversary of the death of Thomas Aquinas College’s founding president, Dr. Ronald P. McArthur. The day began with a 7:00 a.m. Requiem Mass, which Chaplain Rev. Paul Raftery, O.P, offered in the extraordinary form in Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel. Then, later that morning, Head Chaplain Rev. Hildebrand Garceau, O.Praem., offered Mass in the ordinary form for the repose of Dr. McArthur’s soul.
“As Jesus says in the Gospel, the grain of wheat must die in order to produce fruit,” said Fr. Hildebrand in his homily. “Now that Dr. McArthur has passed from this life, we pray that the seed that he planted here, at this college, may continue to bear fruit for the building up of the Church; and we must pray for ourselves, that we may be vigilant in the Faith and may be also men and women of spiritual courage to continue the good work that he has begun.”
The Dr. McArthur Memorial Page
Audio and text of Fr. Hildebrand’s homily
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Dr. McArthur
Rev. Paul Raftery, O.P., offers a Requiem Mass
Rev. Hildebrand Garceau, O.Praem. (’78) |
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