<p>Holy Cross is one of the oldest and wealthiest Catholic colleges in the nation so if they start to have issues, this will mean there are very serious issues for the vast majority of comparable colleges. Catholic colleges, in general, were late to the game of raising funds for endowments. The vast majority of Catholic colleges and universities were founded by religious orders, such as the Jesuits or the Sisters of Notre Dame. A smaller number were founded by individual dioceses of the church. In either case, the institutions usually relied on the order or the church for resources, including land. Priests, brothers, and nuns served as faculty members — free of charge. And the students were recent poor immigrants. As one comparable example, Villanova has an endowment of $355 million almost half of what HC’s is and their enrollment is 10,600 over three times the size of HC.</p>