For many young Catholics — especially those already steeped in the riches of the faith — secular universities can be the very mission field to which God leads them.

A fter raising five sons, this fall I send my first daughter off to college. It is a bittersweet moment. There’s joy in seeing her step into adulthood, mingled with the ache of letting go. As a Catholic mother of a large brood, I have long considered the best way to prepare my children for what lies beyond the walls of our home.

Many of my friends, just as serious in their faith, encourage their children to attend small colleges where the culture aligns closely with Catholic Church teaching. That is a beautiful option, one I respect deeply. But my children have chosen another path: large, secular universities. When I mention their schools in conversation, I sometimes catch a sideways glance, a polite but unspoken, Really? There?

Yes, there.

My conviction is simple: Years of homeschooling and classical Christian education prepared my children not to retreat from the world, but to engage it. Their formation in the good, the true, and the beautiful equips them to carry those truths into places where they are often only faintly glimpsed.

Of course, I am not naïve about what awaits them on campus. Orientation sessions often present distorted ideas about alcohol, intimacy, and relationships, stripped of any sense of the body’s dignity or the meaning of self-gift in marriage. Dorm life may immerse them in the reigning gender ideology, where rejecting one’s own embodiment is encouraged. In the classroom, certain professors champion critical theories that dismiss the past wholesale, and urge students to see themselves primarily through the lens of grievance or victimhood.

And yet, my older sons have shown that it is possible not just to endure such environments but to thrive. One joined a small, overlooked pro-life group. Another took leadership roles in conservative student organizations. A third was profiled in a campus magazine for speaking calmly and respectfully about his beliefs and will soon appear in a documentary on free speech at elite universities. These moments remind me that students can stand athwart the tide not by shouting, but by modeling courage, civility, and conviction.

Now it is my daughter’s turn. In the small South American town where she was born, she was known simply as La Niña — “the girl” — for the first year of her life. She has five older brothers, so her arrival was newsworthy. Over time, she grew into a strong and confident young woman who embraces both challenge and responsibility.

Her experiences suggest she is ready for this next step. She walked the Camino en route to World Youth Day, carrying the prayers of others along the way. This spring, she traveled to Rome for a Holy Week conference of young women, where she received a blessing from Pope Francis just days before his death. And this summer she returned to Colombia, living with relatives in Bogotá while studying Spanish at la Universidad de la Sabana. She traveled by bus back to the town of her birth to process a new Colombian passport, reconnecting with the place where she was once known only as La Niña. And as if to put an exclamation mark on her independence, she ran Bogotá’s half marathon alongside 1,500+ athletes — including several cousins — the day before returning to the United States. Each of these moments required maturity, resilience, and trust in God. Each broadened her horizons while rooting her more deeply in her Catholic identity.

Friends who share my outlook put it this way: The choice of college is not between “Harvard or Heaven.” We should resist false dichotomies. History shows that great minds have been converted within the very heart of academia — not least C. S. Lewis, who without the friendship of J. R. R. Tolkien might never have embraced Christianity. Such friendships are still possible today. Just as the Dominican-run Thomistic Institute brings the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas to elite campuses, so, too, can a faithful roommate or classmate be a channel of grace.

This is not to say that a smaller, religion-friendly college is off the table for my younger children still at home. Each will have to discern where God is calling. But I also believe that for many young Catholics — especially those already steeped in the riches of the faith — secular universities can be the very mission field to which God leads them.

So this fall, as I hug my daughter goodbye, I will be sending her into the very world she is meant to engage. She goes equipped with faith, reason, and love — and with the strength to attest to truths that are not always welcomed. To me she will always be La Niña, the little girl whose arrival was once celebrated in her Colombian hometown. But now she steps onto a far larger stage, one where conviction and character are desperately needed. If she brings even a glimmer of light to her classmates and professors, she will be doing precisely what this moment demands: living not in retreat, but in confident witness.