Liberty Through Virtue

John Adams College is an independent classical liberal arts institution in the American West for students seeking a deeper understanding of the world and their responsibility within it. Through rigorous study and Socratic mentorship, we cultivate intellectual depth, moral clarity, and the practical wisdom needed for meaningful careers, responsible citizenship, and leadership in civic and community life.

Why John Adams College Exists

Most higher education prepares students to work within existing systems. JAC educates those who create systems — entrepreneurs, statesmen, creators, and original thinkers.

Civilization advances because a minority push beyond inherited ideas. JAC exists in this frontier to educate these independent minds, students determined not merely to fit into the world, but to understand and improve it through innovation.

John Adams College is preparing men and women to enter the world defending liberty, standing in humility, and upholding virtue.

Is This Education For You?

Our Philosophy

What Makes John Adams College Distinct?

Education for the Unknown
We prepare students to confront problems whose solutions do not yet exist.

Unconventional by Design
Our curriculum is deliberately independent of current academic trends.

Socratic, Not Scripted
Students test ideas through sustained dialogue, not passive absorption.

Intellectual Rigor Without Apology
Our reading load exceeds most colleges; this is intentional.

Three Parts of a JAC Degree

Original Sources

JAC offers a four-year Classical Liberal Arts program in which students engage the greatest thinkers of civilization and wrestle with their ideas. Students take a principle, pursue it to real understanding, connect it to other great works, and test its meaning through discussion, the essence of critical thinking. Only through this effort can one judge whether what has been read and considered is true.

Socratic Discussion

Socratic discussions require students to engage deeply with the readings and one another, to listen, understand, and respond thoughtfully while examining both others’ ideas and their own. Through dialogue grounded in original sources, students sharpen critical thinking, problem-solving, and diplomacy, a central pillar of John Adams’s educational model.

Application

Discovering true principles requires the courage to apply them in life. Learning alone is meaningless without action. The goal of a classical education is to uncover fundamental truths and use them to better ourselves and the world.

John Adams College is demanding. Earning a degree requires hard work,
diligence, and courage, but those who rise to the challenge will be rewarded.

With the advent of AI,
soft skills are what matter most in education:

Mature deliberation
Problem-solving
Creativity
Understanding human nature
Teamwork
Leadership
Communication
Independent thinking

These skills are at the heart of
John Adams College, and they work:

John Adams College graduates have been accepted into graduate programs at Columbia, Rutgers, Ralston, Ashland, and Antioch universities. Our graduates have also received fellowships at The Spectator World in Washington DC and Encounter Books in New York City.

John Adams College:
Applying the Wisdom of the Past
to the Problems of Today and Tomorrow;
Liberty through Virtue.

Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistake of our own period. And that means the old books.
– C. S. Lewis

If we do not change the way we teach, thirty years later we will be in trouble. . . . We cannot teach our kids to compete with machines who [are] smarter. We have to teach something unique that machines can never catch up to. In this way, thirty years later, our kids have the chance. Value, believing, independent thinking, teamwork, care for others; these are the soft parts. . . . Everything we teach should be different from machines.
– Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba

I think the current education system is designed for a different era, where the main goal was to produce workers for factories. It doesn’t foster creativity, and it doesn’t teach people how to think critically or solve real-world problems. The focus is on memorization, not on understanding how things work or how to innovate.
– Elon Musk

It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—that it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our hearts sing.
– Steve Jobs

John Adams College is a private, non-profit college
located in Provo, Utah and is licensed by the State of Utah.