There are many colleges which are religion specific, such as the Mormon only Bringham Young University. Now, if they can ban people who aren’t a religion, could I make a college that banned anybody who wasn’t atheist? It only seems fair.
There are non-Mormons enrolled at BYU.
And what would happen if someone found Jesus (or someone else) while at your school?
BYN doesn’t ban mormons, but they do have a very strict “in loco parentis” policy that is based on Mormon principles. You can be Catholic or Jewish and go to BYU, but you have to abide by their rules
I think a private college can restrict admission based on race, religion, and so on, but they qould give up federal fiunds, and students couldn’t use federal scholarships or loans to attend.
Yes, you can start a college and use any admission criteria you deem fit. If you do decide to discriminate based on religion, your college will not be eligible for Gummint grants and scholarships, and may not be able to get accredited.
There are, however, Christian colleges which demand that all students sign a statement of faith which identifies them as Christians, often going so far as to identify as a particular brand/flavor of Christian.
The college that my nephew attends, Evangel University, is one such school. Each student there must confess Christianity and agree with the Sixteen Fundamental Truths of the Assemblies of God – at least inasmuch as they will not act in accordance with them during their enrollment. A Catholic student wouldn’t get far there, a Jewish student simply would not exist.
Purely anecdotal, but despite Evangel’s demands on the student body with regard to religion, I know that my nephew has received Stafford and Perkins loans and Pell Grants to finance his education there.
Conversely, Grove City College in Pennsylvania does not qualify for federal student aid but I’m fairly certain that this was not due to restrictions on the nature of the student body but because the college did not wish to hire non-Christians, and most notably, did not wish to craft a nondiscrimination in hiring policy which included homosexuality as a protected class. Interestingly, in response to their disqualification from the federal student aid program, GCC has crafted their own web of scholarships, grants, loans and an interest-free payment program which actually have the potential to give a qualified student more non-repayable monies, more generously termed loans and an easier way to pay the out-of-pocket balances than students in many private colleges where federal aid is available.
Sure, you can do it.
After all, the Boy Scouts were declared a private club, able to make its own exclusion rules.
But don’t expect to get federal grants and loans for your students.
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So wait — does that mean that students can’t use federal scholarships & assistance to attend a women’s college like, say, Bryn Mawr or Wellesley? This seems to be the same kind of discrimination, but everyone here seems to be implying that students can’t use federal funds to attend colleges that make admission decisions based on race, religion, gender, etc.
Or am I conflating two separate issues?
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I believe that a grant given to an individual can be used anywhere to pay for costs. However, institutions may not be able to get grants from the feds, such as NIH or NSF or other types of grant money. It will also be interesting to see how the case of that theology student who had his grant money yanked gets settled.
The Grove City Case was not about hiring policy or homosexuality, but their refusal to sign Title IX (forbidding discrimination against women). It wasn’t that GCC actually discriminated against women; rather, the president of the college refused to comply as a matter of principle, believing that compliance would lead the college down a slippery slope of federal control.
Interestingly, both GCC and Hillsdale College, the only other college which refuses federal monies, have tuition rates well below the national average for private institutions.