Is there a clean way to assign a LARGE number of different texts a (date) value?

I've seen the posts about assigning a numerical value to text. But most of them involve putting the entire list of options in the formula
e.g.
"=if(A1="Freshman";1;if(A1="Sophomore";2;if(A1="Junior";3;if(A1="Senior";4;""))))"

But I'm looking at having a great deal many text options and I would like a formula to look up the value for that text for me. I would also like the value to be in date form.
If this helps. The data is to keep track of end dates for schools in my state of Hawaii. So I would like it to read something like this in two separate columns:

School End Date
Kaiser High 5/31/18
McKinley High 5/31/18
Pauoa Elementary 5/18/18

Naturally I'll have a LOT of different schools to input. But I would only like to assign a date value to that school on one sheet and have it auto populate various other formulas including that text.

TL;DR: I want a formula that doesn't include EVERY single text to value in it. I would like a formula that essentially says "refer to X". X being a table with all the various text to values.

I am pretty inept at Excel so I apologize if my request comes off silly and impossible. I am just trying to streamline our processes in my office and this would lift a huge weight off of my shoulders.

Awesome!!! thank you guys both so much. I was able to figure it out with Vlookup. This is gonna make my life far easier.