I regard Grove City College and Loyola University New Orleans as the best two places in the U.S., heck, on the entire planet, for young people interested in an Austro libertarian undergraduate education, where cultural Marxism will not be shoved down their throats. Or, rather, where this will be minimized, compared to other colleges. Both are very good private religious schools. I think any young person interested in this perspective would have a great undergraduate education at either of them.
However, as a member of the faculty of the latter, let me outline the advantages, as I see them, for my own school.
1. We have more Austrian economists on our faculty then they do on theirs. At Grove, the only Austrian economists are Jeff Herbener and Shawn Ritenour. At Loyola, in addition to me, there are Bill Barnett, Stuart Wood and Dan D’Amico. Plus, my economics department colleague John Levendis is sympathetic and open to these views, although not convinced of them.
2. We have more publications than them in both Austrian and non Austrian journals, certainly in total, but, also, I’m pretty sure, per capita. (This is a traditional way of comparing faculties.)
3. We absolutely exceed them in terms of number of professors and number of students who regularly attend Mises Institute events. Typically, some 3-5 professors, and over a dozen students, can be found at the ASC, the Summit and the MU. Why is this important? In indicates that there are not only more Austro libertarian professors at Loyola than Grove City, but more students of this persuasion. And why, in turn, is that important? One of the chief determinants of happiness at a university for a newcomer is the number of friends made. And friends, usually, share a political economic philosophy. If there are more such students at Loyola, then the chances are that a new freshman of this orientation will be able to link up with them.
4. Since I have arrived at Loyola, two of my former students now have faculty jobs in economics departments (Dan D’Amico is one of them), and 3-4 others are now in graduate schools earning their Ph.D.s in economics. At present, there are another dozen undergraduate students who are planning such careers. I have no information on Grove City in this regard, but, it is unlikely it can match us in this regard, given above considerations.
5. We have regularly scheduled Austrian seminars (monthly), libertarian seminars (monthly), and economics club meetings (twice monthly) where Austrian and libertarian related topics are covered. Both students and faculty attend. Our Austrian seminar is regularly attended by faculty at other universities. Thus, in addition to classes taken with sympathetic professors, there are opportunities to interact with them and like minded students on a weekly basis.
6. Although libertarianism and Austrianism are in different universes of discourse, students interested in the latter are often interested in the former. In this regard, we have several other professors at Loyola, apart from those already mentioned, who are very appreciative of the free enterprise, private property, limited government philosophy: Nick Capaldi in business ethics, Lee Mundell in statistics, Patrick Lynch and Lee Yao in accounting, Jim Viator and David Gruning in law, Jerry Goolsby in marketing, Ron Christner in finance, Bill Walkenhorst in chemistry (no, that is not a typographical error: he regularly attends our seminars). Our college president, Fr. Kevin Wildes, S.J., has published libertarian oriented papers in scholarly journals; he is very open to diversity of ideas, something rare for a college president. Roger White, associate provost, is also sympathetic to free enterprise. Let anyone else top that.
Here is a suggestion: google all these people, plus those mentioned and others at Grove City. This will give you a better comparison.
I must acknowledge that the Austro libertarian professors at Loyola University New Orleans are in the distinct minority. There are only about a dozen of us, in a faculty of several hundred. As at most other universities, faculty members of the humanities and other social science departments are not at all sympathetic to classical liberalism, laissez faire capitalism.
What of considerations in picking a school apart from the academic and scholarly? Yes, New Orleans has had hurricanes, and will, likely, again. But, typically, we get a 7 day warning before their onset. In contrast, earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, etc., which occur elsewhere, strike almost instantaneously.
