Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan is a liberal arts college with 1,300 students.  Offering 34 traditional majors, eight interdisciplinary majors, and nine pre-professional programs, Hillsdale consistently ranks highly nationwide in U.S. News & World Report and Forbes magazine, among other publications.  Its core curriculum exemplifies the tradition of a classic liberal arts program.  All students, regardless of major, are required to take courses in humanities, natural science, and social science during their first two years.  Highly respected conservative professors teach at Hillsdale including Dr. Burt Folsom (history), Dr. Ivan Pongracic (economics), and Dr. Mickey Craig (political science). Students at this southern Michigan campus hear from one of the largest and most distinguished lecture programs in the country.

Hillsdale’s Center for Constructive Alternatives (CCA) has sponsored more than 1,100 speakers since 1971, including conservative luminaries such as Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Walter Williams. Students are required to attend two hours of CCA seminars in order to graduate. Independence is an important theme at Hillsdale.  Upon its founding in 1844, it was the nation’s first college to prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, or religion in its charter.  Ever since, the institution has not taken a penny from the federal government.  When some students received federal loans in the 1970s, Hillsdale quickly reacted by maintaining independence and rejecting government quotas.

Even given the absence of government funding, Hillsdale remains a great value because it continually provides privately funded financial aid packages. Hillsdale provides students with a well-rounded education that focuses on liberty.  Students learn what liberty means and the moral conditions of its preservation.  They develop the skills to be productive citizens and the character to be good ones.  The mission statement sums up the college well.  It reads: “The College considers itself a trustee of modern man’s intellectual and spiritual inheritance from the Judeo-Christian faith and Greco-Roman culture, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.”