Grove City College

From the School

Grove City College is a leading liberal arts and STEM college that integrates faith and learning in a tight-knit residential community an hour from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1876, Grove City College was modeled after the nation's fourth oldest institution of higher education, Princeton University. Thanks to the vision of its founder, Isaac Ketler, and the support of its benefactor and board chairman, Sunoco founder Joseph Newton Pew, Grove City College sought to provide an affordable education of the highest quality rooted in a rich Christian, moral, and ethical tradition with a firm commitment to promoting individual freedom, personal responsibility, and the common good. To this day, the College maintains its foundational purpose, equipping its 2,400 students to pursue their unique callings through an academically excellent and affordable education in a Christ-centered learning and living community.

As one of the nation's most rigorous Christian colleges, Grove City ranks in the top 12% of colleges and universities in the nation for alumni earnings, yet its tuition costs less than half that of peer institutions such as Wheaton College, the College of William & Mary, the University of Virginia, the University of Chicago, Emory University, and Williams College. Expense is not spared, however, when it comes to maintaining a dynamic community where students can fully engage on a stunning campus drafted by the venerable Olmsted landscape architecture firm. The Olmsteds designed New York's Central Park and quintessential college campuses such as Yale, Brown, Cornell, American University, Harvard Business School, Notre Dame, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins. Atypical for Christian colleges, Grove City excels in science, engineering, and computer science, with 42% of its students in the STEM disciplines.

Because of an institutional emphasis on human flourishing, Grove City students can reach their full potential in a vibrant social scene that is conducive to meeting the college's high academic standards. "As iron sharpens iron" (Proverbs 27:17), Grove City students push each other toward excellence, which is measurably reflected in the college's 96% job and graduate school placement rate (from a 98% knowledge rate for the Class of 2017 within six months of graduation). The financial future for Grove City graduates is bright, especially considering they typically make 9% more than competitor college alumni during their first five years of employment, and 21% more ten years after graduation.

Known for its 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case, Grove City College v. Bell, the College provides its students with private scholarships, loans, and need-based assistance while remaining free from federal government entanglement to safeguard freedom of conscience. In addition to operating nearly debt-free, the College practices transparent tuition pricing, abstaining from the common practice of artificial "discounting." As a result, the College does not transfer tuition dollars from some students to others as a recruiting tool. Thus, all students are charged the same price and enjoy equal opportunity to seek financial assistance and manage any remaining debt responsibly. In fact, 41% of graduates graduate debt free. Thanks to the College's high four-year graduation and job-placement rates, Grove City students typically repay their loans three years early.

So where does this college committed to the old Princeton ideal of faith-and-learning integration fit into the spectrum of higher education? At the intersection of academic excellence, human flourishing in a Christian context, personal and professional success, and true value-that's Grove City College. We invite you to come and see for yourself. To schedule a visit, click here or call 724.458.2100.