Crisis in Christian Higher Learning: Aberration or On-Going Problem?

Crisis in Christian Higher Learning: Aberration or On-Going Problem?

Oct. 22, 2024

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guest(s): Dr. Todd Williams

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 10/22/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, good afternoon and welcome to another episode of Stand in the Gap. Today I’m your host, Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastors Network. Today I’m joined by Dr. Todd Williams, the president of my Alma Mater, Cairn University, and our topic today has to do with Christian Hire Education. Now, my guess is you are unaware of what has been happening in the world of the Christian college This past year we have seen an incredible rise of closure of schools despite making up just 15% of today’s higher education market. Christian colleges and University appeared to make up over 50% of recent closures. In fact, looking at 16 of the more predominant closures announced or implemented in 2023, we see a whopping 75% of them are faith-based institutions, and that was reported in April 30th of this past year. These closures hit close to home on the east coast where a PN is located, the King’s College of New York Alliance University, which used to be the former NIAC College and Seminary, and suddenly this summer, Clark Summit University, formerly Baptist Bible College in seminary, all shut their doors of these schools.

Jamie Mitchell:  These schools were heralds of conservative evangelicalism and started really during the time of fundamentalism, making gains in our country. They all have a rich heritage. They were founded by heroes of the faith like AB Simpson and Percy Crawford and Vernon Grounds. They all played an important role. Nyack was the oldest opening in 1882. Kings had closed and then opened its doors again in the mid nineties merging with now defunct Northeastern Bible College only to suspend its operations this year. All of this, my friends, is a heartbreaking thing. Yet for many in Christian higher education, this is both predictable and avoidable, but hard and unpopular decisions need to be made to save these institutions. That’s why I asked my friend Todd Williams to join us. Cairn University is located in Langhorn, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia. It too has faced some stormy seasons, but it seems to have made it through yet days ahead are not certain. This topic should be a concern for parents planning to send their kids to a bible-based college employers desiring to find qualified workers who have a biblical worldview, pastors and church leaders who are looking for future ministries. All should be listening intently today are titled Today Crisis and Christian Higher Education Learning Aberration or an Ongoing Problem. With that, welcome Dr. Williams.

Todd Williams:   Hey. Hello Jamie. Great to be back with you.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, Todd, let’s get up to speed on what’s happening in Christian colleges along with the few I mentioned there has been a wave of schools going out of business. How extensive is this occurrence and essentially can you give us some insights on why this is happening?

Todd Williams:   Yeah, well, it’s a pretty complex issue. I wish it were as simple as saying, well, it’s solely about enrollment or it’s solely about a cultural shift or it’s solely about finances or it’s solely about institutional decision making. The truth is it’s a very complex issue and all of those factors are at play in what we see going on. It’s pretty extensive. I think the number of schools that are closing, as you mentioned across the country, even those that are not state-based or secular institutions closing, it’s a pretty significant phenomenon right now in a post covid era. I think you and I have talked before, there were a number of schools that I would’ve said that were on the hook pre covid and we all, a lot of folks predicted that Covid would actually crush a number of schools and force them to close when in fact probably what it did is delay those closures because the government aid actually kept schools afloat financially probably for longer than they would’ve otherwise.

Todd Williams:   But I would say leading up to Covid and since for sure we have been witnessing I think a phenomenon that really does warrant some digging in, there’s some good people doing some research on what’s going on and I think there’s a lot to be looked at. But one of the things I think it’s important for everybody to understand on the front end of this is when it comes to Christian colleges and universities, it’s not monolithic. As you said, there are bible-based former Bible colleges, there are current bible colleges that are those that have limited degree programs. Then you have your Christian liberal arts universities in none of those, while the Christian higher education scene is not monolithic and there’s a lot of diversity within it, none of the schools in any of those categories are beyond what we see taking place. Schools are closing small bible colleges that are basically just crossed the line from being an institute to a college and offering degrees all the way to well established Christian liberal arts universities.

Todd Williams:   They’re all, we’ve had them close in every category and I think one of the things that we have to come to terms with not just those of us who work in Christian higher education, but the community that we serve is that right now we have a high supply side and a low demand side. I think what’s going on culturally right now around higher education can’t be overlooked. There are a lot of people who are asking the question whether or not a college or university education and degree is worth it, worth the money worth the time, whether it actually advances you professionally that people are desiring to enter trades or working on their own or starting businesses. And so I think there’s, there’s a lot of supply and diminishing demand and that also speaks to a number of other issues which we can unpack as we go here in terms of what’s going on culturally and where the church is and its desire to have its young people educated in a Christian context at a Christian institution.

Todd Williams:   But I think it’s a complex issue where every institution is facing institutional challenges that may be related to decisions they made, their own history, their geographic location, their limited number of programs or having too many programs that aren’t sustainable to some of the contextual issues like the economy and the demographic challenges that we see. So I think both those contextual and institutional challenges are significant and I think when you step back and do an analysis of these closures, you can’t point to any one thing. Even some of the ones that I’ve been very familiar with and talk with leaders while they were going on, there isn’t one thing, it’d be nice if you could say, well, their debt was heavy and a bank called the note and that was the end of it. But actually there are other things going on in the mix as well in terms of enrollment trends and in terms of whether the offerings are desirable and people are looking at that school, how they’re handling their marketing efforts, all of that. But it is a very vulnerable time for Christian colleges in education and it’s really tragic because that is happening at a time when we need them more than ever because of what’s happening culturally. We really do need not just alternatives for Christian families, we need institutions that aren’t just providing an alternative for people who run from the secular institutions to a safer Christian environment. We need to actually have what we do in our institutions, in the lives of students find its way out into the church and society to make a difference.

Jamie Mitchell:  I recently found a moody monthly and 30 years ago I looked at the colleges listed there and there were only two that were still functioning. Amazing phenomenon. When we come back, Todd and I are going to discuss the history of Christian colleges and especially the Bible college movement. Join with us in just a moment here on Stand in the Gap. Well, welcome back Dr. Todd Williams, the president of Cairn University is with us. We’re looking at the crisis facing many longstanding Christian universities and seminaries. Todd, the fact is Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other major secular universities started with a religious and even a fundamental emphasis. You’d be lucky to hear God mentioned at many of except maybe included into a curse word, where did the modern Christian college come from? And with that in mind, give our listeners a little background even on the Bible college movement and what the difference is.

Todd Williams:   Sure. Well, I think a very helpful distinction that you’ve made in terms of where did the modern Christian college come from? I hear people all the time, and even in my own work we would refer to what Harvard and Yale used to be, but you’re talking about hundreds of years ago, and you’re also talking at about a time when the predominant themes of culture were religious and moral and Bible and theology were the center of much of what the colonists and founders were doing with higher education. So it’s really hard to compare what we see in the modern Christian college with those, and we can lament the drift places like that have taken, but they were schools that were actually set up at a time when the culture was predominantly influenced by Christian thinking, and so naturally institutions that they founded were inculcated with that kind of understanding and that kind of perspective.

Todd Williams:   The modern Christian college movements, even if you went and you factored in schools that were founded and others in the, I think Wheaton was founded in 1860 Christian liberal arts schools that had a distinct Christian mission. They’re really coming out of the second grade awakening. They’re coming out of a time of spiritual renewal when actually what was going on was that schools were being founded to actually counter the secular culture for the increasingly secularized culture in which Christians were living and operating. And I think that’s really where the Bible college movement comes from. It comes a lot of it. Schools like Cairn and Biola and Moody all founded around the same time in the throes of revivalism of the early 20th century. And so the modern Christian college is different from the original colleges and universities in America, which were founded with Christian principle in that they were the modern Christian colleges both in the 19th century and in the early 20th century were founded as sort of counter-cultural institutions to actually say, wait a second, this drift towards secular mindset away from the principles and statutes of God away from an understanding of biblical and theological truth is problematic and we need to build Christian institutions that will teach Christian thinking to students who want to make a difference as Christians in this world.

Todd Williams:   And the Bible college movement, which is different from a liberal arts college movement where Christians were in the 19th century creating their own Christian liberal arts institutions, parallel liberal arts institutions across the country. The Bible college movement for most of us started our institution where you and I both studied and where I preside was a lay leader institute. It was actually started in the throes of that 20th century revivalism like other schools, including Biola, Moody and a host of others that were basically teaching church people the Bible as part of this revival, people were coming to faith in Jesus and wanted to know more. And so a lot of what happened, if you look at our roles from the early 20th century, soon after 1913 when we were founded, you’ll see doctors and lawyers and plumbers and carpenters, people who already had their vocations established who were going back to study the Bible.

Todd Williams:   Well, as that revival movement of the 20th century took hold and generations go, well, now all of a sudden the Bible colleges moved from being lay leader institutes in places that were training people for vocational ministry and then many of them, most of them morphed into colleges that were Bible colleges, but also preparing people for a host of other professional arenas like for instance, us. We’ve got business programs are among our fastest growing programs. We’ve got computer science and all kinds of things and many other Bible colleges have done the same thing. Some actually making the move like Biola to maintaining 30 hours of Bible in the core, but becoming very much looking like a Christian liberal arts institution across the board. So again, as I said in the opening segment, it’s not a monolithic community by any stretch, but the Christian liberal arts schools where you’ll have some bible and theology taught their tradition was to parallel the provide a Christian alternative or option paralleling secular institutions of their ilk.

Todd Williams:   Bible colleges, every student, I mean for a long time institutions like ours didn’t teach any of the liberal arts and only did it then to sort of help students earn degrees. Now what we see is schools like us and a few others where there’s a strong biblical and theological core are actually teaching those other disciplines in a very Christian way, in a very biblical way. And so there’s a great diversity in Christian higher education, which actually makes it tricky I think for parents and students to make choices because you think an institution is Christian and therefore you can consider it safe and a faithful institution. It’s not always the case, but the history of the movement is significant. And again, because it was always intending to be counter-cultural to offer Christian light and a Christian voice and a secular culture, boy, Jamie, how much more important is that today when we see what’s going on around us? These schools need to be succeeding and thriving, not just to educate our own students and serve the evangelical population that we serve, but also to make a difference in what is a very sort of difficult cultural context where moral relativism and subjectivism are the order of the day

Jamie Mitchell:  Day. I’m going to touch on that because in my research, Todd getting ready for this program, I just kept coming up with two things as we talk about why schools are closing, and correct me if I’m wrong, parents no longer seeing the value of a Christian education or even students not seeing the value of it. Obviously there’s a little bit more costliness to it. There’s a selection of finding one nearby and all of that, but they’re not seeing the value of it. And the second thing is that many of these Christian colleges who are closing, there seems to be a theological drift just prior to their collapse. And I guess is what you’re saying, if the Christian college movement, the Bible college movement started to really influence people in regards to their biblical worldview and to get them ready to make a difference because the culture was just going into the toilet. You look at today, today if it’s ever needed would be Now, am I wrong on that? Do parents not see a value and are some of these schools that are closing, are they drifting theologically speaking,

Todd Williams:   Speaking? Yeah. Well, and I like the way you opened the show with providing a public service for families to understand what’s going on. And I think if I can offer some insight from being in this work now for 30 years or so, one of the things I think is that there is an encouraging thing that we see going on even in the midst of these closures and sort of the struggles that Christian higher education institutions are having is the emergence of a number of gap year programs. I think what’s happening is there are a lot of evangelical Christians who are questioning the value of a college degree period, any kind of college degree. And so the question is, well, they’re very transformative years. They’re very formative years for young people post high school, what do we do? And so a number of really fine discipleship oriented gap year programs have taken hold.

Todd Williams:   Some of them go back as far as the eighties, the first one I think in the country at Miracle Mountain Ranch in 1982. But there’s a lot of these now where parents are sending their young people or students are choosing to go after high school to study for a year in the Christian community study Bible and theology and be discipled. Some of them go into college and some of them do not. That’s another issue where families are deciding whether or not a college education is worth it or necessary. Then there’s another category which I think is a group of people that are relatively naive about what is going to happen to their and their students if they end up in a secular context or in a Christian college or university. There’s anything but faithful to absolute truth and the authority of God’s word. And I think that there’s a degree of naivety.

Todd Williams:   You think, well, we had them in Christian school or we homeschooled them or they went to public school, but they were in a good youth group and they can make it through those environments. And what we’re seeing now is the deconstructing of faith is a very real thing that’s happening in college age young people because they’re environments where there is an intent, and this happens in Christian colleges as well as secular ones. There is an intentional effort to undermine the established faith of young people. In other words, both in Christian colleges that are anything but faithful to the authority of God’s word. And then secular institutions, the faculty members and others are intent on tearing down this traditional idea of the Christian faith. And I think parents and students are somewhat naive as to how susceptible we are to those forces. And you don’t have to look very far to see how worldviews have shifted in young adults in colleges and universities, including some Christian colleges and universities.

Todd Williams:   Then there’s another group that is just hard to find the information about how to find a faithful school. Do I want to go to a Christian liberal arts school? Do I want to go to a school where there’s more Bible and theology? Do I want an academically rigorous institution or am I more concerned about spiritual environment? What are my options? And the truth is, even with these closures, there is a vast array of Christian colleges and universities from small bible institutes and Bible colleges to the larger behemoth Christian universities like Liberty and Grand Canyon where people can go. And so the choices are very broad, as I said in the opening supply is very high now we have to find a way to get information into the hands of parents and influencers and pastors and youth pastors and guidance counselors and headmasters of Christian schools and in the hands of the students themselves to actually see what’s out there and make wise choices. And there are some organizations doing some really good work around that.

Jamie Mitchell:  I think all of us as Bible believing Christians would admit that there’s a great need to having education that is truly Christian, but there’s a cost certain there’s conflict ahead to deliver on that need when we return. What are some future threats that we need to be aware of that are threatening these Christian institutions? We’ll be back in just a moment. Well, our guest today, Dr. Todd Williams, has served in Christian education both secondarily, I think even elementary for the last 30 years in the collegiate world. Todd, I do want you to take a moment and share about how Cairn University is doing what God is doing there. You started a new school year, how are things that Cairn and how can parents and pastors find out about the university?

Todd Williams:   Sure, thanks for that. We’re having another good start to another academic year. I think overall, there’s a lot to be encouraged about. These are challenging days with regard to enrollment, but I think we’re very pleased with where we are. We had a number of transfer students from some of the schools that you referenced earlier that have closed, and so it’s been a pleasure to serve those communities and try to give them some stability and a path forward. We’ve got a number of new programs going that have been really great. You mentioned the King’s College closing. We picked up Dr. Steele brand and launched a politics philosophy and history program at Cairn, which I think is doing well and there’s a lot of good stuff going on in terms of the program. We just finished our re-accreditation with the regional accreditor and got a clean pass, actually some great commendations on how well integrated our mission was and how mission focused we were, how we had improved financial stability over the last several decades.

Todd Williams:   So really great across the board. I think the energy is great on campus. We’re in a spot where we get to deliver a university education in a very dynamic environment, but also disciple these students that the Lord has entrusted to us. We’re seeing some growth at the graduate level. We just brought a number of the counseling students from Clark Summit down to Karen and a faculty member from there as well. And so we’re hopeful that the graduate programs will keep growing. So there’s a lot to be encouraged by at Karen. There’s good energy there, and we’re doing fine. Parents both can check us out@karen.edu. That’s the easiest way. We’re all over the social media feeds. We didn’t just launch a new endeavor called Faith and Truth Media where we’re putting all of our external facing podcasts. We have a podcast called Defragmenting with some faculty members that’s really good and all of our publications and the chapel podcast, so folks can go to Faith and Truth media and find all of the things that we’re trying to provide as a resource to the evangelical community. But if they go to Cairn edu, that’s C-A-I-R-N, Cairn edu. They can find their way around from there.

Jamie Mitchell:  Todd, I want you to take out your crystal ball and look down the road a bit. What concerns you in the years ahead? The culture obviously is in conflict with what we believe, but there must be other factors fighting the mission of most Christian colleges. If you can be specific, what do you see as some real threats that lie ahead? And then I want to come back and I want to ask you a question about accreditation.

Todd Williams:   Sure. So obviously the cultural stuff, but let’s remember the cultural thing, especially for Christian colleges that are of our stripe where students have to make a faith profession to attend all the faculty members sign annually agreement with not just the statement of faith, but now in our case, our foundational statements, which is our positions on biblical authority as it relates to human sexuality and marriage and life. Faculty members have to sign that every year. So when you’re looking at institutions like ours where there’s a strong requirement to be a biblically minded Christian to be a part of our community, the cultural issues are more subtle. In other words, what we have to do is I think that Christian colleges have to think through their curriculum and understand that we can’t make the mistakes. The military axiom, the generals always fight the last war, the narrow thinking, the sort of legalism, the things that were part of our past that a lot of Christian colleges were pushing against, trying to sort of get students to think more critically and open-mindedly about things.

Todd Williams:   We’re now dealing with a completely fractured mind, and we have to actually bind people up and affirm the idea of absolute truth and biblical authority and the basic precepts of the gospel. And I think if Christian colleges and universities don’t take seriously the need to remediate young people in terms of helping them understand the basics of a Christian and biblical worldview, the basics of their faith to be able to understand it and articulate it and defend it. But one of the threats is just our naivety about what we’re actually against the cultural issues, not withstanding we have cultural influences on the minds of young people that we need to address and that has to be taken seriously. The other one I think that often gets overlooked too is Christian colleges are not immune to this. Everybody’s doing it, not everybody we’re not, but they’re overextending on debt.

Todd Williams:   I think in addition to all the things parents should be looking at, if you really want to understand how financially viable an institution is, you need to check where they are with regard to debt and liabilities. You would be blown away, Jamie, if you heard the debt numbers from some of these institutions. Institutions of 1500 students who are carrying $50 million in debt or $80 million in debt, or $30 million in debt, or $22 million in debt that Karen, our board put in place. Long-term debt cannot exceed 50% of net revenue. The idea that you should borrow $20 million to build a dorm in hopes that students will fill it is foolishness. That is counter to all the proverbial wisdom of the Bible in this demographic downturn. Borrowing tens of millions of dollars to build a facility because you think it will attract students is naive and foolish and also sets you up to actually change your standards because you just have to fill the beds and fill the seats to pay the bills and to feed the monster.

Todd Williams:   And I think that debt is a serious problem for Christian colleges and universities, and some of them have already made bad decisions that they’re living with. I think the other issue is making a strong case for our colleges and universities to parents and understanding what parents and students are actually looking for and what they need and making sure we understand that and answering the questions in an accurate, transparent way. In the last five open houses that we’ve done at Karen, where I meet with parents and do a q and a, I’ve been asked every single time in the last five, how do we ensure that faculty members stay aligned with the institution? How do we make sure that our faculty members aren’t teaching counter to the mission of the school? Do you have tenure? And I think that this is a concern because a lot of the challenges in Christian college and universities can be found not in the institutions necessarily going adrift, although that happens, but they’re not monitoring what’s going on in the classroom and they find themselves with faculty members who are tenured or contracted and they can’t take action when a faculty member may giving verbal ascent to their statement of faith but is not aligned with the ethos, the mission, the vision, the objectives of the institution.

Todd Williams:   And I think that’s a real problem too, if we want to be credible in the eyes of our secular counterparts and our accrediting bodies. And so we bring people in who’ve got great credentials, but they may not share our commitment to mission and vision.

Jamie Mitchell:  Todd, we got about two minutes. I want you to explain for our listener, what is accreditation? Why is it important, and what kind of pressure are these agencies putting on Christian colleges?

Todd Williams:   Sure. Well, one of the things I think that happens a generation ago or half a generation ago, it seemed like everybody was pushing for this accreditation. We were one of the first bible colleges to receive regional accreditation at the time, and there was sort of a good housekeeping seal of approval. The idea was, well, you’re a credible institution and you’re doing your accomplishing academic objectives and we can trust you. So you look for parents and guidance counselors and others and students look for the seal of approval from accrediting bodies. The regional accreditation is peer review to make sure that there are standards of quality control in place that institutions are doing what they say they’re doing. It’s sort of a way of holding them accountable. There are programmatic accreditations as well, organizations that accredit individual programs, business programs, the social work programs, the music programs, those kinds of things.

Todd Williams:   All of these accrediting bodies have standards that institutions have to comply with and conform to. I don’t think that, I don’t hear parents and others asking the question that much anymore. The big issue with accreditation is you cannot receive Title IV funds. In other words, your students can’t get Pell grants or other kinds of government financial aid if they’re not accredited, approved by chia, which requires accreditation. But where the danger is lurking in the high grass is with programmatic accreditation where organizations are putting pressure on various academic programs. Now in what we see going on culturally with the DEI and the woke agenda, driving very hard, a social and political and cultural agenda and saying to Christian institutions, if you want an accredited program in X, Y, Z, you have to teach according to these objectives. And a lot of Christian schools are saying, okay, well we got to have that program because students want it.

Todd Williams:   But you find yourself really doing a very dangerous dance over your core convictions and values and ideas. And as you know, we made a very difficult decision after 50 years of having a social work program to close that program because the accrediting body for social work, the CSWE put standards out there, which we thought were untenable for us as a Christian institution. And so when parents are looking, accreditation bodies are organizations that hold academic institutions accountable to make sure they’re doing what they say they’re doing. But you have to watch because sometimes they put things in the standards that go beyond that. You are actually teaching your students to do math and to think critically and be skilled in biology or chemistry or music, but then they start creeping into the values area and that’s where Oscar Guinness used to say it, and he is stealing it from someone else. But if you’re going to dine with the devil, you have to use a really long spoon. And I think in the academic world, you have to be very careful that these institutions, these accrediting bodies are not forcing you to make compromises.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, I hope one thing from today’s program you walk away with, and that is you pray more seriously for Christian colleges and seminaries, but secondly, you learn some of the things that you’ve heard today. Pass them on to young parents. They need to know these things so they can plan. Well, when we come back, we’re going to finish up with Todd and talk about strategies for surviving of the Christian colleges. Well, it’s been our privilege to have Dr. Todd Williams, the president of Cairn University as our guest today. We’ve been hearing a sobering report on the state of many Christian colleges, what they’re facing, why they’re closing. Todd, I’ve learned some things today. I mean, if I’d had child again, if I had a child going into college age, I’ve learned some things to ask that school, not just do they hold to the authority of scripture?

Jamie Mitchell:  Are they protecting from faculty or teachers drifting? But also what’s the debt load and are they protecting themselves from coming under the influence of accreditation? All of this has been incredibly helpful and I think we’ve learned some things about how colleges can survive. I want to take just a little side trip in this last segment, and I want you to speak to the parents and pastors that may be listening, Todd. And that is the whole issue of selection of a school. Where can they get help? How can they know what school they should be choosing for their kid? Because as we’ve talked about, parents and pastors and Christians alike need to see the value of why going to a Christian institution of higher education that is thoroughly and truly Christian is important. What would you say to parents as they’re looking and are there any resources out there?

Todd Williams:   There are, and I would say you want to gather as much information as possible and you want to, can’t look in every corner and you can’t turn over every stone, but you need to be looking for the big things. And it’s been hard here to for find a resource where that’s not a ranking. In other words, a book just came out that talked about academic faithfulness and very helpful, but they give a score. And so you’re ranked, and of course we did quite well in that because they’re looking for issues that hit with conservative evangelicalism, and so we did quite well in that. But there’s an organization just getting launched, the Center for Academic Faithfulness and Flourishing, and they’re actually putting out a guide that simply catalogs all the Christian colleges and universities in America. They did their own research and then reached out and said to the institutions, verify that this is accurate.

Todd Williams:   So they did their own research and then asked the institution to verify what they found. And that is not a ranking system. It’s simply asking questions like, do students make a profession of faith? Is it open enrollment or are people required to have a faith? Is there a statement of faith that faculty members are accountable for? And what does the curriculum look like? And even going so far as to list out the core courses. So if you look at T University and that guide, you’ll see that not only does it include our courses on the Old Testament, new Testament, Christian theology, apologetics wisdom literature, but the US government course where students are learning the constitution and what they do in terms of their English and writing skills. It has the whole core. So that organization’s putting together a guide, which we launched I think within a few weeks, that I think will provide parents with just a catalog of information where they’re not caught ranking because the danger with the ranking is you think, well, that school ranked number four, so they must be good.

Todd Williams:   And then you actually find out, well, when, yeah, they scored really high on all of these metrics, but they have three faculty members who are teaching a very aggressive DEI agenda or something along those lines. I think that that’s the challenge is you can’t look at every corner and turn over every stone, but there are a couple of big ones, and you mentioned them. I think you want to make sure that a place is doing its job. Accreditation can be a very helpful thing, but you want to make sure that those affiliations aren’t forcing an organization to drift. You want to make sure that their mission is real, that it makes sense, that it resonates with you and that they’re monitoring it. It’s not just promotional information or it’s not just something that they do to satisfy their board of directors. Look at the curriculum and then I think ask questions about the faculty and then the financial side of things as well.

Todd Williams:   One of the things I think that happens is Christian just came up in a meeting I was on last night. Parents will look at the acceptance rate, which is an old metric, years and years ago. What’s your acceptance rate? You say, well, they got a 90% acceptance rate or 93 acceptance rate or 83. I don’t want a kid going to a school where 88% of the kids who apply get in. But in a school like ours or other schools that we’ve mentioned where there’s a strong Christian commitment and the curriculum is rigorous in terms of biblical and theology studies, theological studies, and there’s a service requirement and there’s all this chapel requirement, it’s a pretty self-selecting group. I mean, if you’re applying to a school like that, you’re pretty self-selecting. So naturally acceptance rates are going to be higher. But if Christian parents are using old metrics acceptance rate average SAT score, which since Covid is completely out the window, you’re looking at those old metrics, what you really need to be looking for is authentically Christian institutions that are committed to faithfulness and upholding not just the doctrines of scripture, but its authority and its sufficiency.

Todd Williams:   And I think those are the deciding factors. And I think that the parents need to get to the bottom of that. And I think there are resources coming that’ll actually help with that.

Jamie Mitchell:  And Todd, part of that is why I speak to parents is there is going to be a cost. Education in general costs money, and sometimes you don’t get the same kind of grants or scholarships or aid that you can in other avenues. And so it’s really a stewardship issue. We really need to talk to our parents now when they have younger kids that they need to put this as a target in their life and start saving to help your kid so that not only they can get to a Christian college, but then they don’t walk out with a boat anchor around their neck of hundreds of thousand dollars of loans. And so it really is a stewardship issue that we need to be speaking to parents about, isn’t it?

Todd Williams:   Yeah, it is. And I think that there are a couple things you need to fight against the trend lines where people are saying, well, it’s not worth it. It is a college degree is still a leg up in the marketplace and it’s still necessary to be trained for ministry. Those things still matter. I think also for a lot of our institutions, and this was certainly my, as a first generation college student, it’s overwhelming when you look at the costs, but other people have done it and are doing it. And I think that what I would tell parents all the time is don’t get intimidated by sticker shock. By the time you get a discount and you get your scholarships and you get all that in, it may be more affordable than you realize and students do take on it. But the national average is essentially less than a car payment.

Todd Williams:   I think it’s in the thirties now, 35,000 or so. It’s not hundreds of thousands of dollars is Harvard law. Our students at Cairn, for instance, are graduating way below the national average of debt and paying back at a higher average than the national average, which I’m very pleased with. And I think that that’s the other thing is that your student may have to forego buying a brand new car and everybody sort of needs to adjust their expectations and realize that this is an investment in your future. It is doable, it is expensive, but it is doable. And institutions like ours and many other fine institutions do everything we can to put it within reach. And I think you have lots of options. You don’t have to go to the most expensive Christian college or university. You can find other options, but the alternative of paying for a state school or a secular institution that might be cheaper because it’s so heavily subsidized by the government where a student is just going to get assailed with regard to their personal faith and their belief and truth is just not worth it. And so I do think that that is important, and I think that’s the same thing true across the board. We need Christian philanthropists to get behind faithful institutions that are committed to the right thing. Stop pouring your money into institutions that are Christian in name only. Find those that are faithful and support them. That’s the key. Financial viability is very important, and we need families to send their kids. We need schools to be responsible stewards of the resources they have, and we need givers to respond in time.

Jamie Mitchell:  Todd, thank you. God bless you. Pray for Cairn. Pray for other colleges, friends. Come back in 23 hours.