Carroll College

Founded in 1909, Carroll College, in Montana's capital city of Helena, is a teaching-centered, private Catholic four-year college, ranked by U.S.News & World Report as the number-one regional college in the West for 2012 and the top regional college Best Value School in the West. Students come to Carroll for its combination of top academic programs, affordable tuition with generous financial aid, and the deep sense of community the campus offers. The college's surroundings in the small capital city of Helena promise students abundant employment opportunities, access to a healthy outdoor lifestyle, and plentiful entertainment, arts, and cultural offerings. The local business community and state government prize Carroll students as interns and employees, with Carroll graduates often receiving outstanding job offers prior to earning their degrees. As the center of Montana's political life, Helena is a natural fit for students desiring civic involvement and a career in public service, law, or nonprofit advocacy.

Almost 80 percent of Carroll graduates earn their degrees in four years or fewer, which can lower debt and improve lifetime earning potential. This, combined with Carroll's overall affordability, generous financial aid, debt counseling for students, and its graduates' success in obtaining well-paying jobs, has made Carroll's student loan repayment default rate one of the lowest in the nation.

Community at Carroll extends across the globe, with students studying, interning, and serving internationally. Carroll's Engineers Without Borders student chapter and the Carroll Outreach Team offer regular trips to Latin America, Europe, and Africa, where Carroll students and their professional mentors improve public health, build infrastructure and help solve local problems. Students who choose to study abroad have over fifty countries and over 125 institutions of higher education available to them on four continents.

Carroll students and graduates are recognized national leaders. In 2011, the White House honored a recent Carroll business graduate as one of eleven 'Champions of Change' in entrepreneurship, and at the same time the White House named a Carroll student to the statewide director's post for the First Lady's Let's Move! initiative. The Carroll Talking Saints forensics team, a training ground for future attorneys, public servants and business professionals, is ranked in the top ten of all colleges and universities of all sizes nationwide and has reigned as the Northwest regional champion for the past 22 straight years. Carroll math and computer science students have won top 1 and 2 percent (Outstanding and Finalist) rankings in the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling and the Mathematical Contest in Modeling, and recently scored at the top in cryptanalysis. In athletics, Carroll's Fighting Saints football team has won a record six NAIA championships.

Carroll graduates are highly prized in the professional job market and are accepted to the nation's best medical, law and graduate schools, with some of the highest per capita admission rates in the nation. Among Carroll's academic achievements: 100 percent of Carroll nursing students pass the professional NCLEX examination on the first try; 85 percent of Carroll pre-med students applying to medical school are accepted; and within weeks of earning their degrees, all Carroll civil engineering students have jobs and graduate school acceptances in their fields. While still in their undergraduate years, Carroll natural science students have discovered more than 10 new species and been published in scientific literature worldwide for their research breakthroughs. Currently, Carroll students are involved in groundbreaking grant-funded research into West Nile Virus and chronic wasting disease.