In partnership with the East Coast Jesuits and the Baltimore business community, the school targets lower income families of religious, racial, and ethnic diversity.

[3] In 1996, the Jesuits in Chicago founded the first Cristo Rey school to provide a college preparatory education to the children in the Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood.

The initial stumbling block of how to pay for a college prep education was resolved through having students earn part of their tuition through the Corporate Internship Program.

[7] In 1993 they opened St. Ignatius Loyola Academy,[8] a tuition-free middle school for disadvantaged young men from under-served neighborhoods in Baltimore.

[10] Cristo Rey Jesuit's first commencement took place on June 18, 2011, at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.