It’s no secret that there’s a crisis in higher education.
The cost of attending a four-year college has increased 180% in the last four decades, and the national student loan debt has reached $1.75 trillion.
Meanwhile, skilled trades like plumbing, electrical work and construction are facing labor shortages, losing workers to retirement at higher rates than young people are joining them.
And the reality of that student loan debt has some young people looking for alternatives to a traditional four-year degree.
In Springfield, Illinois, a new Catholic trade school aims to recover the dignity of skilled labor while also forming students intellectually and spiritually — and without saddling them with student debt.
Students of San Damiano College for the Trades will receive technical instruction and on-the-job training in their trade of choice, a liberal arts associate degree and spiritual formation, Kent Lasnoski, the school’s founding president, told The Pillar.
The college is in the process of being approved to operate in the state of Illinois, and hopes to welcome its first students in 2025.
The first year of courses will introduce students to each of the various trades offered, which will initially include carpentry, electrical work, roofing, ecclesial restoration, and tree care and landscaping. There are plans to expand offerings to include masonry, plumbing and HVAC, and welding and fabrication down the road.
Students who choose union trades will apply for apprenticeships with a labor union, which they will begin in their second year. Students who choose non-union trades will receive technical training from a company.
Meanwhile, the college’s classes will follow a classical liberal arts curriculum, featuring theology, philosophy and the humanities.
San Damiano is not the first Catholic institution in the U.S. to offer a trade education — even one combined with a liberal arts curriculum — or at least to plan on offering that.
Harmel Academy in Grand Rapids, Michigan opened its doors in 2021, while The College of St. Joseph the Worker in Steubenville, Ohio is slated to open this fall, and Kateri College in Gallup, New Mexico plans to open in 2025.
All three say they will offer a combination of education in the trades, liberal arts, and Catholic formation.
But San Damiano is unique in a few ways.
For one thing, it will be the only Catholic trade school to offer an associate degree.
Harmel offers a two-year program without a degree, while St. Joseph and Kateri College say they will both offer bachelor’s degrees - and lengthier programs, going, in St. Joseph’s case, to six years long, double that of San Damiano.
In addition, San Damiano is the only Catholic trade school in the country to specifically advertise that its prospective students will be able graduate debt-free, though the other schools emphasize that work opportunities may significantly reduce the overall cost of education.
Because the labor unions and companies will be paying students for their work, students will break even financially — or even come out ahead — by the time they graduate from the three-year, $75,000 program, San Damiano says. Per the school’s “pay-as-you-earn” financial model, tuition payments will be distributed across the three years in proportion to students’ ability to cover them with their earnings.
The model may be a tempting offer for individuals hoping to keep out of debt as they start their careers. While many skilled trades offer wages that exceed the national median wage, graduates of four-year programs still typically earn more than those without a bachelor’s degree.
Springfield’s Bishop Thomas Paprocki told The Pillar that he hopes the associate degree will keep doors open for graduates — “in our society, credentials are always helpful,” he said.
But, he emphasized, the college’s goal is not just to teach trades, but to form the whole person.
The liberal arts section of the curriculum includes theology, philosophy, humanities, art, and business, among other subjects. Students will read authors including Homer, Dante, Aristotle, and Tolkien.
In addition to their studies, students will also participate in the life of Springfield’s Norbertine community, which has its residence on the St. Francis of Assisi campus where the school will be located. (Also on the grounds are the Hospital Sisters of St. Francis, whose reduced need for its facilities have made space for the new college.)
Students will attend Mass and daily prayers with the Norbertines, who will also offer confession and spiritual direction.
“The students will be expected to participate in their own formation as good Christian men,” said Paprocki.
And in learning, working and praying together in what will be a rigorous daily schedule, students will have the opportunity to build a strong Christian community among themselves.
Currently, Lasnoski and his colleagues are in the process of applying for operating authority from the Illinois Board of Higher Education.
They are also fundraising to cover initial costs. Beyond this campaign, however, Lasnoski aims to operate the school mostly on tuition fees by maintaining a lean administration and relatively low-cost lifestyle for students (who, for example, will receive only one hot meal a day from the school).
The earliest the college would open is fall of 2025, admitting up to 26 young men in its inaugural class.
Paprocki did not exclude the possibility of someday admitting women — though such a change, he said, would bring additional logistical hurdles to overcome, like dormitory space. But he also noted an acute need to form young men.
“Young men face a particular challenge in terms of, ‘What is the role of a man in our society today?’” he said.
“So I think that it’s important that we give some specific focus to that question.”
Responding to cultural, spiritual and economic needs
Part of the impetus for the school is rooted in the diocese’s history. From 1929 to 2014, Springfield was home to a junior college run by a community of Ursuline Sisters; from 1928 to 1972, a trade school run by Franciscan Brothers of the Holy Cross. San Damiano College is in continuity with both schools’ missions, Lanoski said.
Lasnoski also hopes that the school will help address what he sees as a cultural problem: the idea that working in a trade is “less noble” than attending a four-year college and working in the information economy.
Contrary to what some may assume, he added, working in a skilled trade is not only physically but cognitively rewarding.
“You have to figure out: What is going wrong with this structure, and how do I fix it? What’s wrong with this engine, and how do I fix it? It’s not just going to tell you,” said Lasnoski.
“You have to actually get in there and think through problems.”
Furthermore, he said, our culture is experiencing a “spiritual malaise” for having disconnected from the concrete world.
“We need to get out of this gnostic falsehood of living in the Facebook world or the Instagram world, and to get in touch with things again,” said Lasnoski.
“And so we’re trying to wake people up spiritually, wake people up culturally and also satisfy a real economic need as well.”
Like the other Catholic trade schools that have popped up in recent years, San Damiano College will likely have small class sizes. Most of these schools have (or anticipate having) classes somewhere between five and 40 students.
The college would likely accept more students per class only if it expanded its offerings, said Lasnoski.
“[Trade schools] can’t be huge because they have to serve a real local and regional economic need,” he said.
For example, he said, a large auto mechanics trade school could not offer students a debt-free graduation and solid job prospects.
“That one city you have it in isn’t going to need 2,000 mechanics,” Lasnoski explained.
With several Catholic trade schools launching or preparing to launch in the past five years, Lasnoski believes that the trend toward the trades will continue.
“People are just sick of all of the hassle and waste associated with the story that everybody needs to go get a four-year degree,” he said.
“So I think we’re going to continue seeing these schools pop up.”
‘Rebuild my Church’
The name of Sam Damiano College comes from the church of San Damiano in Assisi, Italy. It was there that St. Francis, praying before the church’s crucifix, heard God’s voice: “Go, rebuild my Church, for as you can see, it is falling into ruin.”
Taking the command literally, St. Francis first rebuilt the physical structure of San Damiano. Later the saint understood his mission in a broader sense, restoring the mystical body of Christ by preaching the Gospel and calling people to repentance.
Echoing that Franciscan spirit, ecclesial restoration is part of the goal at San Damiano.
“There’s an aspect of it that is literal, and we have many old churches that are constantly in need of repair,” said Paprocki, who mentioned that he prays before a San Damiano cross himself.
“But then the other aspect of this is teaching them Christian virtues, in terms of the bigger picture of repairing the Church as a community.”
Whatever trade students choose, Lasnoski hopes that graduates will take part in both physical and spiritual restoration.
“We’re trying to help them be the kinds of people who go out into the world and restore the Church in all its fullness.”
