August 23, 2012
10,000 Ojai Road
Santa Paula CA 93060
Contact: Anne Forsyth, Director of College Relations
(805) 525-4417      
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THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE NAMED ONE OF FORBES’ “TOP COLLEGES”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

SANTA PAULA—August 23, 2012—In assembling its annual list of America’s Top Colleges, Forbes magazine focuses “on the things that matter the most to students: quality of teaching, great career prospects, high graduation rates and low-levels of debt.” Using these criteria, Forbes has once again named Thomas Aquinas College to its selective list.

In its latest evaluation of the country’s top 650 schools, the nation’s leading business magazine places Thomas Aquinas College within the top 20 percent of all institutions, the top 100 private colleges and universities, and the top 10 Catholic schools.

Forbes’ ratings’ “do not attempt to assess a school’s reputation, nor are they a measure of academic selectivity,” writes the magazine’s Michael Noer. They are specifically based on postgraduate success, student satisfaction, graduate indebtedness and default rates, four-year graduation rate, and competitive awards.

Says Brian T. Kelly, Dean of Thomas Aquinas College, “While the Forbes’ rankings do not comment directly on the quality of our academic program, they do offer prospective students valuable information about our institutional strength and their prospects as potential graduates of the College. We are delighted, therefore, to be included among Forbes’ top 100 private schools.”

About Thomas Aquinas College

Thomas Aquinas College has developed a solid reputation for academic excellence in the United States and abroad. At Thomas Aquinas College, there are no majors, no minors, or electives because all students acquire a broad and fully integrated liberal education. The College offers one 4-year, classical curriculum that spans the major arts and sciences. Instead of reading textbooks, students read the original works of the greatest thinkers in Western civilization — the Great Books — in all the major disciplines: mathematics, natural science, literature, philosophy, and theology. Rather than listening to lectures, they engage in rigorous Socratic discussions about these works in classes of 15-18 students. The academic life of the college is conducted under the light of the Catholic faith and flourishes within a close-knit community, supported by a vibrant spiritual life. Genuinely committed to upholding civic virtue and leading lives dedicated to the good of others, Thomas Aquinas College graduates enter a wide array of fields where they are a powerful force for good in the Church and in the culture. Well-versed in rational discourse, they become leaders in education, law, medicine, journalism, public policy, military service, and business. In addition, a steady 10% of alumni go on to the priesthood or religious life.