New Catholic trade schools are sprouting up across the country — here are four 

Now in its fourth year of operation, Harmel Academy of the Trades in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has a vision to “form men and to apprentice them to Jesus Christ,” according to David Michael Phelps, the school’s president. 

The all-male academy aims to form Christian men through a humanities curriculum consisting of philosophy, theology, history, literature, and film, along with a robust education in the trades. 

The men who attend the two-year academy live on campus and pray in community with their classmates, such as reciting the Divine Office three times a day with one another. 

The school has a “foundations year” for first-year students, which entails the exploration of a variety of different trades. The goal of the foundations year is to help young men discern their path for a career. 

Some end up deciding to pursue a trade the school doesn’t offer. Others decide to pursue a traditional four-year college. Certain students make the decision to stay at Harmel and join an apprenticeship track for either machinists or machine builders. 

The academy is planning to offer new tracks soon, such as welding and automotive.

The school has a goal to make attendance easily affordable for students. Students will work when they are at school, and their income can go “a very long way” in paying for tuition if they work hard and live moderately, Phelps said. 

The school also offers certain scholarships and a “Solidarity Fund,” which “allows for the supplementation of that man’s income while he’s here,” Phelps said. 

The academy has already graduated two cohorts of students. Its first class consisted of six students and its most recent cohort included 23 students. 

Phelps said the feedback from graduated students and employers has been positive.

“What we find with our employers is usually almost always a phone call that goes something like this: ‘Hey, this guy you sent over here is excellent. Can I have five more of them?’” he said.

“The guys are men of skill and character, but the employers don’t always understand that it’s because they understand themselves as working for Our Lord first,” he said.

Kateri College

With a goal to open its doors by fall 2025, Kateri College in Gallup, New Mexico, plans to offer students a four-year liberal arts bachelor’s degree program and certification in a specific trade. 

The first trades the college will offer are carpentry and construction, with a vision to add welding, electrical, and diesel mechanics to follow. 

John Freeh, one of the college’s co-founders, told CNA that the college is in response to the “unnatural divorce” between the intellectual life and the life of manual work. 

“Our thought is that there are virtues and qualities particular to those two realms of life, the intellectual and the manual, which complement each other and lead to a fullness of humanity. So I think there’s good reason for trying to affect a new marriage between them,” he said. 

Freeh said the goal is for students to avoid large debt by the school’s partnerships with corporations and benefactors to reduce tuition.

He also said that students will have the ability to get paid to work in the trades during the school year and the summers under skilled craftsmen, which will add to their training and their ability to pay tuition.

Freeh also mentioned that there is a sizable Native American population in New Mexico, which the school has been conducting outreach to for prospective students. He added that there are a lot of “untapped” scholarship funds available for Native American students that will help the cost of tuition for them.

Kateri College hopes to accept 30-40 men and women for its freshman cohort in the fall of 2025.

“It’s become clear that this idea is germinating elsewhere,” Freeh said of the Catholic trade schools coming onto the scene. “So we think it’s a movement of the Holy Spirit.”