The Congregation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), today commonly known as the "Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids", led by Mother Aquinata Fiegler, OP, founded the Novitiate Normal School in Traverse City, Michigan in 1886.

The State of Michigan granted a charter to award two-year degrees to women in the new college in the same year.

The site of the new college was transferred to the newly erected motherhouse of the Sisters on East Fulton Street, in the margins of Grand Rapids.

Bishop Joseph G. Pinten of Grand Rapids instigated the reform to admit men alongside women.

The college began awarding four-year baccalaureate degrees and was renamed Aquinas College in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas and its founder, Mother Aquinata Fiegler, OP, in 1940, but the articles of incorporation to legally effect the institutional change were not filed with the State of Michigan until 1941.

In 1945, Mother Euphrasia Sullivan, OP executed for the college the purchase of the Holmdene Mansion, erected by Edward Lowe in 1908, and its arboreal lands, at 1607 Robinson Road, bordering East Fulton Street.

In May 1950 the outdoor Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima was dedicated, in memory of the members of Aquinas College who sacrificed their lives in the Second World War, after a student and alumni campaign of two years.

[6] The 1950s and 1960s were a period of great growth and construction and during them, the college abandoned and sold the original campus on Ransom Street.

In 1975 the name of the athletic teams was changed from the "Tommies" to the "Saints", under a student poll, because African American members had been racially ridiculed as "Toms".

It began operating as a four-year college in 1940 and was named in honor of the great medieval theologian and philosopher, Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Programs currently offered include: England, Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Costa Rica, Germany, Japan, and Dominican Exchange (US).

Juan Olivarez became the seventh president on July 1, 2011, and retired upon completion of the school year in the spring of 2017.