St. John's College
Founded in the seventeenth century, St. John’s College is renowned for its commitment to the liberal arts and the Great Books. The school has two campuses: the original one in Annapolis, Maryland; and the other in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Steeped in tradition and intentional about its culture of teaching and learning, St. John’s has resisted many corrosive trends in higher education and preserved its curricular focus in a way that many liberal arts colleges have not.
St. John’s Constitution of the Student Polity “discourage[s]” any restriction on “public speech, assembly, expression, or association.” This is a student-government document, however, and does not bind the whole of the college’s leadership. The Rules of the College Community do not explicitly guarantee free-speech rights, focusing rather on “community standards” such as “civility, responsibility, and honesty,” as it is phrased in the section on social media. The college’s rules also include a restriction on third-party religious proselytization on campus.
The community standards allow students to protest on campus but forbid disruptive or disorderly behavior. While the college professes a commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive academic environment, there is no institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) complex.
What sets St. John’s apart is its liberal arts curriculum, which surveys primary texts on politics, philosophy, literature, science, mathematics, and more, from antiquity through the present day. Some items on the reading list have remained constant since the American Founding. Students read and discuss these works in small, free-ranging seminars and in even smaller, more focused, tutorials designed to impart mastery of particular disciplines. This robust curriculum has earned an “A” from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni’s What Will They Learn? ratings, which assign letter grades based on how many of seven core subjects are required in the core curriculum or general education program. Despite these strengths, we note that some alumni have raised concerns about the level of faculty commitment to the college’s traditional core curriculum. This is a matter to watch.
Student life is vibrant at St. John’s. Extracurricular activities abound, from intramurals to the arts. Each semester ends with the Collegium, an event designed to showcase musical performance. The campus’s proximity to Chesapeake Bay provides the opportunity to engage in water sports such as crew and sailing. The alumni network is small but tight-knit and active.
St. John’s, more than many liberal arts colleges, is a decent educational investment. Annual tuition is not cheap, at $40,936, but graduates have a very low default rate of 0.7 percent. The college has worked in recent years to lower costs, and freshman tuition is fully covered for students from households earning less than $75,000 a year. Ranked in recent years by Fiske as a “best buy” college, St. John’s prepares its graduates well for the workforce: “Johnnies” garner starting salaries 15 percent above the national average. The college also enjoys a number of graduate partnerships with respected programs such as those at Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago.