Even at the close of the 19th century the colonists had little interest in higher education. They said: We give land to our sons, that’s worth more than education. Until the Resettlement the only school in Krasna was the elementary school. Ongoing education was only available elsewhere. The Krasna situation was similar to that in the neighboring villages. The Katzbach Chronicle on the subject: Schooling in Katzbach is not a major issue. Most people believe that the only people who study are those unwilling to work.

Children were sent to high school only if they were exceptionally gifted and if they could be spared from the field work, i.e., when there were other children to assist with the work.

During the first thirty years after the founding of the colonies there were practically no continuing schools. Socalled “central schools” were introduced by decree from the Welfare Committee in 1843, where the colonist boys could finish the curriculum offered by the village school and have a sufficient education to teach in the colonies. ¹⁾ These schools also educated the community and district secretaries.

In Russian times the closest high schools for continuing education were in and around Odessa. Boys from Krasna, desiring to become priests, went to the boarding school at the priesthood seminary in Saratov, which was over 100 kilometers distant from Krasna. These distances prevented many people from continuing the education at such institutions. Krasna began to catch up with the levels of the surrounding Evangelical communities, which did not have these restrictions.

Krasna children had the following options for continued education after the turn of the century:

• Evangelical German schools in Tarutino (a high school for boys, founded in 1906 and one for girls, founded in 1878, as well as the Werner School in Sarata. Krasna people did not make much use of these schools, because they were of Evangelical orientation.
• Catholic German schools in Karlsruhe/Odessa and Neufreudental/Odessa
• After 1918 more wealthy farmers sent their children to Rumanian High Schools, such as the state school in Akkerman.
• There were boarding high schools, some of them in cloisters in Oradia-Mare and Bucharest.
• Jassy became the most utilized center of education for priests and teachers.
• Arzis had a farmers’ school for young farmers since 1935.

Eduard Ruscheinsky describes the situation as follows: ²⁾ Bessarabia had no Catholic institutions of higher learning. Our parents were concerned to preserve their religious faith and this concern made them spend the extra money and great costs it took to send their sons to the Catholic institutions of higher education in the Volga and Black Sea regions. Many chose the Catholic priesthood seminary in Saratov, which was also the seminary for our diocese. Others entered the Catholic high school of Professor Jakob Scherr in Karlsruhe, German Catholic colony of the Black Sea District. Very rarely did Krasna sons study in the Evangelical higher institutions of learning in Bessarabia, such as the German High School in Tarutino and the German-Evangelical Teachers’ Seminary, the socalled Werner School in Sarata. Very few completed a higher education in state schools, in Russian as well as in Rumanian times.

One also has to take into consideration that keeping a student in boarding schools cost a lot of money and Krasna parents could ill afford those costs, unless they were wealthy farmers.