Why Bother With College?

Why go to college when it is expensive and time consuming? Why can’t we all be Steve Jobs? He never got a college degree and he was successful. There is also the growing trend of Christians who are encouraging young people to skip college and do an internship or go to trade school. So why bother with college?

Most modern colleges treat students as cogs in a degree-seeking machine. Input a student and output a graduate. These secular machines give no thought to man’s purpose or the goal of education. Most higher ed is merely doing skills training: click this button, move these papers, send this email. But this is not the original purpose of college.

New Saint Andrews College employs the original model of education to give men and women freedom. This is not just a simple classical education. NSA is bootcamp for the mind. This program will push you harder than you can handle. It will get you in shape for life. This program is not for the faint of heart.  

The mission of New Saint Andrews College is to graduate leaders who shape culture living faithfully under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. 

NSA’s mission focuses on educating the whole person: mind, body, and soul. People are made in the image of God which means they need to be educated in how to think, how to love, and how to take risks. 

 Some might say that college cannot teach ambition, curiosity, or a willingness to fail. We say it can. NSA’s program does just that using a key course of study. Students learn languages to increase their observational abilities. Students learn logic and reasoning to make distinctions, synthesize material, and form coherent solutions. Students learn rhetoric to communicate with precision and creativity.

These critical skills are the marks of people who know how to lead others. People who are only trained to push buttons and move papers will not have the ability to think in new ways. But life is not a simple color by numbers project. Life is scary and there are lots of unknowns. Leaders must know how to deal with ambiguity, sticky issues, and problems that are not part of the instruction manual. NSA prepares students for these realities. 

NSA’s program is a robust Christian education built on a strong foundation in scripture. Only in this way can students be well prepared to face life and be leaders who shape culture and rebuild Christendom. 

New Saint Andrews College offers preparation for life in all its complexity: home and church, marriage and work, politics and culture, life and death. College is not about simply finding a job; college is about forming the whole person. We should not abandon the college model even if some do it wrong. The answer is to get a true liberal arts education grounded in God’s word that will equip you to lead the world.