Marmion Academy was founded in 1933 when the monks of St. Meinrad Abbey combined Jasper Academy (Jasper, Indiana) with the Fox Valley Catholic High School, which the Augustinians had just returned to the diocese of Rockford.

During the Great Depression era, it was difficult for students to pay their tuition as well as to buy uniforms, so the monks, in 1935, associated with the JROTC program and changed its name to Marmion Military Academy.

In the 1990s, in order to provide more options for its student body and a return to the original spirit of the school, the monks of Marmion Abbey decided to make JROTC an optional program and to reinstitute the original name of the school, Marmion Academy.

[4] In early 2002, the school decided to close its residential program and started to expand its student body.

Marmion students are required to perform at least 15 hours of community service each academic year.