Catholic blogland has been discussing reports on the professor and head of the English department at Franciscan University at Steubenville who assigned a mandatory reading assignment of a blasphemous and pornographic book, which I will not name, to his students. At first the university defended him. Now, after parents and alumni said they were closing their check books the professor has been fired and replaced. The school president has apologized. Steubenville was once considered to be a safe, solid Catholic school. Although the Newman Society says things at the university are still pretty much okay people are beginning to wonder about that.
Supposedly the "safe" schools are what? Christendom, Thomas Aquinas, Wyoming, Steubenville and Ave Maria? Except for Wyoming and Aquinas I've read complaints that didn't seem frivolous or stupid about all of them. College is not required to keep your Faith and there are devout Catholics who never went to college or who chose went the two year route. Frankly, unless your kid is majoring in a hard science or technology program like biology, nursing, architecture, engineering, etc., you are probably paying a fortune and running up a massive debt for a useless degree that won't lead to a good paying job.
I read the suggestion of one writer who plans to have his kids go to the state school but live at home. His argument is that his son will probably be able to handle the nonsense at the secular school better than the sly Faith undermining that would take place in a Catholic school with an impious faculty. I think it's time for Catholic parents to stop being sentimental. Your grandpa may have gone to Notre Dame and you may have gone to Trinity but you can't just send your kid off to a "Catholic" school and think that everything is going to be okay. As it turns out the professor has an agenda and is looking for victims at a Catholic school so he may be worse than he would have been at a secular school.