The BAH is a 3-year degree open to select students from Seattle Preparatory and five other high schools in the area, while those completing an on-line offering are also able to apply.

[1] The college is named after the 16th-century Jesuit missionary to China Matteo Ricci, who worked closely with the local people learning from the Chinese while simultaneously sharing European ideas.

Since 2015 students who successfully complete one or more of Seattle University's online offerings with the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy are also eligible to apply for the BAH degree.

[5] In 2016 students in the program succeeded in having the dean of Ricci College removed for, in their view, focusing the program too narrowly on Western ideas and history and for failing to address issues like social justice, gender differences, poverty, and mass incarceration.

It provides teachers and students with a deep, humanistic understanding of the economics, politics, history, culture, and ethics of poverty in the United States and around the world.