ABSTRACT
This chapter explores that Catholic higher education reflects the development of the Catholic population. When Catholics were an immigrant group existing on the fringes of a larger society, Catholic higher education was a fringe enterprise, proceeding on its own values and towards its own goals. The chapter discusses as adequately as possible, given the rather minimal information available to us, certain historical trends in the development of Catholic colleges and universities. It summarizes existing sociological information about the current graduates of Catholic colleges, information drawn to some considerable extent either from National Opinion Research Center (NORC) reports or from NORC data not yet published in any formal report. Without attempting to enter into the difficult question of how much religious and ethical formation can be expected of a higher educational institution. It refers to another body of NORC data which gives some idea of the social and religious consequences in adult life of having gone to a Catholic college.
