According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, enrollment in colleges across the nation has decreased by roughly 13%. While many colleges struggle to draw in students, many faith-based universities are seeing a boom in applications, championing the classical curriculum over woke ideologies.
Founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test (CLT) Jeremy Tate outlined on "Fox & Friends Weekend" Saturday how the classical education is giving many colleges across the U.S. an edge over others.
"If you're watching this, and you graduated college in the sixties or seventies, then you probably took U.S. history or economics or Western civilization. But those days are long gone. Many colleges now have gone to kind of an al-la-carte model. But there's a narrow band," he said, "that schools like the University of Dallas, Franciscan, Benedictine, Hillsdale Grove City College that have maintained and sometimes double down on a traditional core curriculum."
Tate explained that college and universities adopting woke ideologies and curriculums has been an alarming trend contributing to the rise in application for those faith-based colleges which still utilize a core, classical curriculum.
Hillsdale College, for example, had recorded a 53% increase in applications as of April 2022.
"The story of American higher ed really for the past half century has been a story of one college after another really trashing any kind of a serious core curriculum," he said.
Recently, the State University of New York (SUNY) system will require all new students to take courses related to social justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion beginning fall 2023.
Members of the SUNY Board of Trustees passed a resolution in November 2021 outlining the addition of several required courses, which included a new social justice category.
SUNY PROFESSOR OUTRAGED BY SOCIAL JUSTICE COURSE REQUIREMENT FOR GRADUATION: ‘WE NEED TO STAND UP’
While the resolution was passed in November 2021, the social justice course requirement goes into effect for all new students seeking a bachelor's degree beginning in the fall of 2023, and will begin in the fall of 2024 for first-time students obtaining an associates degree.
Nicholas Giordano, a professor of political science at Suffolk Community College in New York and Campus Reform higher education fellow, told Fox News Digital that the new course requirement appears to be part of a political agenda.
"Colleges and universities throughout the country are adding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion/Social Justice (DEISJ) principles as part of their degree requirements. It seems many colleges and universities would prefer to pursue a political agenda rather than produce productive members of society who contribute to a competent workforce and understand their civic obligations. Continuing down this path will render higher education meaningless," said Giordano.
In contrast to the DEI movements, Tate explained the classical curriculum offers a more well-rounded approach to helping educate and prepare children for the future.
"[The curriculum has] the aim of the cultivation of virtue, moral formation. It's an incredible education. And they are bucking the national trend, which is really a decline of young people going to the four-year brick and mortar liberal arts colleges," he said.
"I think every parent wants this kind of education for their children. Every parent and even across the political spectrum, parents want their children to go to school and come back more honest. They want their children to grow in wonder and curiosity."
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Fox News' Adam Sabes contributed to this report.
