The 229 Roman Catholic colleges and universities in the US currently educate over 600,000 students. These institutions are affiliated with such religious institutes as the Jesuits and the Sisters of Mercy or, in the case of Notre Dame, with the Congregation of Holy Cross. As of 1989, 44 percent (100) are comprehensive institutions and another 40 percent (91) are liberal-arts colleges, with the rest research institutions or junior colleges.

Religious colleges tend to enroll higher numbers of women and part-time students than do non-religious institutions. They also tend to be located in the Midwest and the Northeast part of the country.

Historically Catholics often felt unwelcome in many Protestant-dominated private and state colleges. Catholic colleges were established to create a religious environment for higher education and professional schools. These schools trained everincreasing numbers of immigrant children and fostered inculturation in a Catholic milieu. They were highly effective at both tasks. Even in the late twentieth century nearly 40 percent of these students were the first in their families to attend college.

After the Second World War, the GI Bill offered tuition funds to veterans and this influx of students caused many schools to expand greatly The increase in the number of men with a college education fueled the postwar economy and propelled the percentage of college-educated Catholics upward. The children of these alumni often attended parochial schools and added to the expansion.

In the 1960s, the liberalizing effects of the Second Vatican Council were felt in the United States, and the increased numbers of wealthy and influential alumni contributed to a movement to make Catholic colleges more academically competitive. In the late 1960s, most institutions were turned over to boards of trustees, a majority of whom were lay people. At the same time, increasing openness to the new scientific methods shifted the focus of scholarship to a more scientific and a less specifically Catholic perspective. The percentages of priests and religious teaching in the colleges began to drop, with a concurrent hiring of lay people to respond to the increasing student population and the desire for increased professionalism. Ultimately the debate over what it means to be a Catholic, or religious, college grew. A few institutions even disaffiliated themselves from the Catholic Church. Schools based their identity on the teaching of theology and the development of faith life revolving around campus ministry programs. Concerns persist that colleges are becoming less Catholic. Attempts by the Roman Catholic Church to address the issue of higher education in the United States have centered, since 1991, on the Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae of Pope John Paul II, in which he defines the nature of a Catholic university. Feverish debate continues unabated on this question of Catholic identity.