Franciscan University of Steubenville. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Franciscan University of Steubenville
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 24, 2025 / 15:08 pm (CNA).
The 2025-2026 Newman Guide will be available in December to help parents and students find reliable Catholic elementary, secondary, college, international, and graduate education programs.
The Cardinal Newman Society, which publishes a yearly guide on the most faithfully Catholic schools in the U.S., will release its new edition as both an e-book and a digest-sized print book.
The Newman Guide has recommended colleges for Catholic families for 20 years, but the 2025-2026 edition is the first that will recommend elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and graduate programs. The new guide follows the recent announcements of St. John Henry Newman becoming a doctor of the Church and a patron saint of Catholic education.
The guide gives families a path to a faithful Catholic education, which is growing more relevant, according to the Cardinal Newman Society, which reported a 55% decline in enrollment at Catholic schools in the last 50 years. Recognizing that Catholic education is the Church's most effective means of evangelization and Catholic formation, the society says it continues to respond with tools, including the Newman Guide.
"With so many Catholic colleges compromising their mission, the Newman Guide served as a trusted resource to identify schools committed to forming students intellectually and spiritually in line with Church teachings," said Dominic Kalpakgian, a student who started attending a Newman Guide-recommended college in 2024.
"The guide's endorsement carried significant weight with my parents, who trusted the Newman Guide schools to uphold the values and principles they had instilled in me," Kalpakgian said.
"The Newman Guide was instrumental in helping my family locate a faithfully Catholic grade school when we were moving across the country," said Molly Metzgar, a mother, teacher, and Cardinal Newman Society employee. "While subsequently teaching at my child's school, I helped successfully navigate the Newman Guide application process."
The guide reaches more than 75,000 families online each year and now plans to expand numbers with the additional print version. Since starting to approve schools beyond just colleges, 28 elementary schools and 55 graduate programs have become Newman Guide-recommended.
"Out of our 160+ graduates, those who attended Newman Guide colleges are the ones still practicing their faith," said Derek Tremblay, the headmaster of Mount Royal Academy.
How to become Newman Guide recommended
Since 2007, the Cardinal Newman Society has recognized Catholic colleges in the Newman Guide that have strong policies and standards and uphold Catholic identity within academics, athletics, faculty hiring, and campus life.
The key elements in faithful Catholic education, according to the society, is looking for salvation of souls, Catholic community, prayer, Scripture and sacrament, integral formation, and Christian worldview.
To be recognized in the Newman Guide, "a Catholic school must be committed to strong Catholic identity and model the 'Principles of Catholic Identity in Education,' use the Catholic 'Curriculum Standards' in whole or part, and align their school policies with standards promoted by the society which are derived from Church teaching."
Catholic schools must have a curriculum that provides for the integral formation of the whole person and helps students know and understand objective reality, including transcendent truth.
The Newman Guide policy standards are derived from guidance from Church councils, popes, Vatican congregations, bishops conferences, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and other Church documents.
