Our Story

Founded by the Jesuits in 1996, Cristo Rey Jesuit High School is a neighborhood school with the mission of offering the best college preparatory education available to the youth of the Pilsen/Little Village community of Chicago, for whom other private schools are not a financial option.  Cristo Rey is able to offer this type of education because of its most innovative component: the Corporate Internship Program (CIP).  Through this work-study program, all students work five days a month in entry-level jobs in Chicago firms to fund 65% of the cost of their education.  Currently, 106 corporations such as Chase, Deloitte & Touche, Madison Dearborn Partners, Loyola University Health Systems, and Mayer Brown Rowe and Maw, participate in the CIP. While initially serving as simply a financial proposition to pay the operational costs of the school, the CIP has evolved into a progressive means of providing students with valuable work experience, while simultaneously empowering them to take an active part in financing a major portion of their education. 

Now in its tenth year, Cristo Rey remains committed to serving families with limited financial means, who seek out a Jesuit, Catholic and college preparatory education to their children. The school opened its doors with only 79 students and now has grown to over 530.  During its short existence, Cristo Rey has raised close to $30 million to build two new classroom buildings, a cafeteria, gymnasium and state of the art library/media center. It now boasts that every one of its students for the past four years has been accepted to at least one college.  Today 82% of Cristo Rey graduates are currently attending or have completed college.

Cristo Rey is increasingly receiving national recognition as a ground breaking model for urban education.  In response to the success of Cristo Rey, the Cassin Educational Initiative Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested close to $30 million toward replicating this educational model around the United States. Currently, there are 12 high schools throughout the country that are associated through the Cristo Rey Network and operate using the educational model named for the first Cristo Rey School in Chicago.  Seven more schools are slated to open by fall 2007.