A new Catholic trade college in Ohio is hoping to fill a void
School balances trade work, humanities study
A new Catholic trade college in Steubenville, Ohio, is seeking to fill an empty space in the higher education landscape.
The College of St. Joseph the Worker describes its education model as “radically Catholic from top to bottom.” When the school accepts its first class of freshmen this fall, it will put to the test a unique curriculum that blends vocational training with traditional higher education studies.
Students who pursue the sixyear program will graduate with a certificate in one of the four major trades — HVAC, electrical, plumbing and carpentry — along with a bachelor of arts in Catholic studies.
Jacob Imam, the founder of the college, said the school aims to produce students who are “fully formed in both head and hands.” The curriculum is designed to give students an actionable path to a full-time job in the trades while providing them an opportunity to study humanities at the same time.
According to Mr. Imam, the college fills a void that has been left by traditional higher education institutions: holistic teaching that integrates intellectual and spiritual learningwith skills in physical labor.
“People know, and rightly so, that those with a college degree out-earn those who don’t. … That’s almost a meaningless statistic when someone who is seriously considering going to college is weighing that next to the option of a real career,” he said.
Through the courses offered at The College of St. Joseph the Worker, students won’t have to choose between the two, Mr. Imam said. Instead, they will graduate with skills in multiple trades and a degree, without getting “up to their eyeballs in debt.”
Base tuition is $15,000 a year, but students pay only utilities for oncampus housing and they begin making a salary for their trade work during their second year at school. The salary is paid by their worksites. The pay continues through the end of the six-year program, the last three years of which are spent shadowing a master craftsman in a state of the student’s choosing.
The consistent pay and low-cost housing are intended to offset the cost of tuition and allow students to graduate financially net positive — meaning they leave with more than they spent — and without any debt.
Financialpracticality was a founding principle for the school, Mr. Imam said. He began to doubt college as a financially advantageous endeavor for young people and worried the investment in a college education was no longer worthwhile.
“With those two major policies for higher education shattered at my feet, I had to think of something else to do,” Mr. Imam said.
The answer was not dismissing college or the idea of higher education, but rather reclaiming it for what it once was, and for what it should be again, the founder said. Part of that is teaching the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which encourages personal responsibility and ownership.
Students who attend the college will live in a house in downtown Steubenville and be taught how to make home repairs, handle maintenance issues and budget for their utilities. Eventually, they will be expected to take sole ownership over repairs.
“We don’t see housing as a way of racking up more income,” Mr. Imam said. “It’s not another revenue stream for us. We would rather abandon our rights as landlords to charge rent to instead give our students the opportunity to cultivate the habits of true ownership.”
The founder said the housing model is intended to equip students with an arsenal of skills they can carry through their life.
In addition to housing, the college is able to keep tuition costs low by keeping a small staff and administration. Currently, the school has fewer than 10 faculty members, and a 10-person advisory board. There will be 30 students in the freshman class; the school has already received more than 130 applications for the fall inaugural class.
“Instead of building a glorious campus with cured lawns, we’re in the middle of a dilapidated Rust Belt city which enables us to keep our costs low. Also, we don’t have the same administrative bloat that most universities do,” Mr. Imam said.
Currently, the college is open to the public for shortterm theology and craftsmanship classes that range from a week to a month. The college has been certified by the Ohio Department of Higher Education and Apprentice Ohio and will pursue accreditation in the future.
One common misconception about the emerging education model, Mr. Imam said, is that it’s for students who would not have otherwise been accepted into a four-year university.
“Our college is certainly one for the intellectual elite … they do really want to work with their hands for a living but not miss out on the opportunity to rigorously study the humanities.”