Top 5 Lists

What are the five best civilian schools for leadership?

Deep Springs College
Bishop, California

This quirky, two-year liberal arts college in the desert dividing California from Nevada gives each of its twenty-odd male students a full scholarship—and puts the students to work running a cattle ranch. They also run the college, which is governed by New England–style town meetings. In between high-level seminars in the liberal arts and science, students choose new faculty and staff, decide on admissions, and develop a level of moral responsibility rare outside of the service academies. They typically transfer to elite colleges to complete their degrees.

University of Richmond
Richmond, Virginia

The Jepson School of Leadership Studies at Richmond is the first such dedicated program in the United States, and its offerings are sophisticated and academically challenging. It follows Cicero’s definition of the liberal arts as training in citizenship, and uses this as a focal point for a broad, traditional education in the humanities and social sciences. This program is the brightest spot at an otherwise rather unremarkable school.

Patrick Henry College
Purcellville, Virginia

This college founded by and for homeschoolers has grown in little more than a decade into an academically respected liberal arts academy—and one that combines a broad education in the Western tradition with a focus on developing professional skills, making career connections, and preparing each student to take a role as a Christian leader in society. Every student must complete a real-world internship in business, education, or politics in order to graduate.

College of the Ozarks
Point Lookout, Missouri

This distinctive “working college” is highly selective because it offers free tuition to every student—each of whom pays his way through “Hardwork U” by laboring some fifteen hours weekly. Most students are first-generation college students from poor families, and they work on the school’s cattle and pig farm, bake and sell fruitcakes, and staff its radio station and lodge. The education is rigorous, steeped in Christian values, patriotism, and the Protestant work ethic. The school’s Character Curriculum teaches moral values drawn from the Great Books of the West.

Wyoming Catholic College
Lander, Wyoming

This recently founded rural college combines a rigorous education in the Great Books of Western civilization and in Catholic theology with a year’s required courses in equestrianship, and periodic “Outward Bound”–style wilderness expeditions where students must work together to master the challenges of nature. Wyoming emphasizes physical, moral, and intellectual fitness. It places a stronger emphasis on natural science than many other Great Books colleges.