Trade Religious Liberty for Federal Money? No Thanks!
The pioneer spirit is alive and well in Lander, Wyoming. Founded in 2005, and admitting its first freshmen class in 2007, Wyoming Catholic College is a school of pioneers. According to their website, the school's "primary educational objective is to offer a traditional liberal arts education that schools the whole person in all three dimensions—mind, body, and spirit."
To that end, the college has a rigorous Great Books curriculum that feeds the mind, a challenging outdoor leadership program for the body, and a strong, faithful Catholic Christian identity that educates the spirit.
It's that combination of pioneer spirit and Catholic Christian identity that led Wyoming Catholic College's board of directors to make a costly financial decision.
The college has been self-financing since it was founded. As a non-accredited school, it could not receive federal money in the form of grants or student loans. Now, however, the college is a candidate for accreditation and the federal government is happy to hand it between seven hundred fifty thousand and a million dollars annually. Except that the school's board voted unanimously to tell the government "No, thanks."