What We Mean
New Saint Andrews is breaking away from the dominant paradigm in higher education. We're among a new generation of classical Christian liberal arts colleges that are equipping students for a lifetime of faithful living and all vocational pursuits at a fraction of the cost of the average private college tuition.

New Saint Andrews is committed to recovering high academic standards, nurturing the Christian character of faculty and student life, and returning to the Reformation’s understanding of Christian vocation.

In the spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation, New Saint Andrews College stands firmly committed to the classical Christian tradition. Higher education was universally classical and Christian prior to the late 19th century. For more than a millennium classical Christian colleges and universities shaped young adults’ lives and characters through personal mentoring with godly professors and rigorous academic study. Classical Christian higher education tutored men and women in the Christian worldview and immersed them thoroughly in the Scriptures and the great works of Western civilization, which had been radically transformed by the Gospel. After completing their undergraduate studies, generations of classically educated Christian graduates went on to teach or labor in various callings, to “master” various professions or disciplines with further study (hence a Master’s degree), or to pursue vocational training through apprenticeships with reputable Christian craftsmen, businessmen, and professionals. This classical Christian academic tradition nurtured virtually every great Christian scholar, civic leader, and pastor from Augustine to Kuyper.

Jesus did not say, "Seek first a vocational-technical education"
America began to abandon the classical Christian approach to higher education and vocation in 1862 with passage of the Morrill Act, which established federally funded land-grant universities. These novel secular institutions replaced Christian education with supposedly religiously neutral vocational-technical training at the undergraduate level. The “modern” secular university was born. Institutions caught in the grip of this new paradigm—obsessed with vocational-technical training, degree choice, paper credentials, dormitories, intercollegiate athletics, recreational facilities, and government financial aid—soon found their academic standards, spiritual integrity, and student morals plummeting. Colleges pressured students to choose career paths prematurely and provided little or no spiritual or intellectual preparation to face a culture increasingly hostile to the Christian faith. Not surprisingly, many historically Christian colleges operating within the new paradigm have ended up being apostate longer than they were faithful. Academic standards have fallen so far that most graduates of our best classical schools—good as they are—and even of our best universities today could not meet the admissions requirements of the classical Christian colleges of the 18th or 19th centuries.

Not higher education as usual
New Saint Andrews is committed to recovering high academic standards, nurturing the Christian character of faculty and student life, and returning to the Reformation’s understanding of Christian vocation. As an academic institution, the College devotes singular attention to providing a deep and broad classical liberal arts education from a Trinitarian worldview that will prepare students for lives of faithful service in every sphere, every calling, every vocatio.

• Because a student becomes like his teacher, our professors must be well qualified, with personal integrity, spiritual maturity, good standing in the church, a love of students, and excellent academic and professional credentials and experience.
• Because education is not an impersonal transfer of data, but a personal, comprehensive nurturing of a way of life, our approach to student learning involves a close-knit, small group environment with a limited number of students and faculty supported by several strong churches and a lively community.
• Because dorms are notorious breeding grounds for immaturity, irresponsibility, and sexual sin, we refuse to build dorms, and instead encourage students to board with Christian families or to share apartments with fellow students as responsible, accountable adult members of the wider community.
• Because recreation and sports have become idols in our day and serious distractions to student learning (though bodily exercise still profits a little), our college concentrates exclusively on education, and welcomes individuals, families, and communities to organize sports and recreation activities as they wish.
• And because all our vocations are simply too important for mere training, we give our students the firm foundation of a rigorous classical Christian college education that is an essential prerequisite to the pursuit of advanced studies or apprenticeship with a respected Christian professional mentor, and to lifelong professional leadership (not just an entry level job).

Join us in leading a new generation of Christian colleges
In short, New Saint Andrews College is a classical Christian college devoted to reforming Christian higher education and breaking free from the dominant secular paradigm. New Saint Andrews is leading a new generation of Christian colleges. That's why the Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently honored New Saint Andrews as one of the top 50 "All-American Colleges" for "conservatives, old-fashioned liberals, and people of faith." We invite you to join us in the exciting pursuit of an authentic Christian higher education, following a better paradigm. We won’t promise you a job when you graduate (and neither can voc-tech schools, of course), but we do promise to prepare you to be an intellectually, spiritually, and culturally faithful spouse, parent, citizen, worker, and church member serving in Christ’s Kingdom for the generations to come. That has always been the higher calling of Christian higher education—and of New Saint Andrews.