SANTA PAULA : College Receives Grant for Students
Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula has been awarded a $150,000 grant from a Los Angeles foundation to provide financial aid to students this academic year.
The tiny Roman Catholic college will use the money from the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation to fund grants, loans and work programs for students unable to fully pay for their education, said John A. Holecek, a spokesman at the school.
Tuition, room and board at Thomas Aquinas cost $16,940 a year, and 80% of the school’s 203 students receive some financial aid, he said.
Because the college was founded in 1971, it has a relatively small endowment of about $1 million. It depends heavily on grants to fund the financial aid program. At Thomas Aquinas, all students take the Great Books curriculum, in which they study the greatest philosophers, scientists and other thinkers in Western civilization from ancient to modern times.
The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation gives grants mainly to higher education institutions; civic and cultural projects; and programs for disadvantaged youth, women, children and the elderly.
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