Can Christian Colleges Survive the Eighties?

Since liberal arts enrollment has dropped two-thirds in 15 years, Christian colleges must rethink their strategy.

Even those of us whose formal education ended decades ago cannot quite escape the excitement of the back-to-school season. Public and private schools once again gear themselves up for the most exciting of all tasks—the preparing of a new generation.

In time past, schools of all sorts—public and private, elementary, secondary, and college or university—knew where they were going and how to get there. They said, “Give us your young, and we will educate them and prepare them for life.”

Colleges Under Siege

But now the traditional enthusiasm is tempered by a more than normal dose of uncertainty. Not only the general public, but also faculty and administration are much less certain that our educational system has the answers. New problems are hitting especially the private colleges. For instance, the pool of high school graduates from which to draw students has been shrinking, and this will continue at least through the eighties. Suddenly, colleges and universities are hit with a double whammy: the number of potential students is shrinking; and both students and their parents are less confident of the real value of a college education—especially at today’s inflated price.

Also, the new crop of freshmen arrive in worse academic shape than ever before. We have experienced a 16-year decline in SAT scores (exams to determine college ability). This places an unprecedented burden on our institutions of higher learning to help students play catch-up so they can read, write, and do simple arithmetic.

To compound the dilemma of such institutions, their income and resources are at a low.

Finally, and perhaps most decisive of all, these schools have lost their goal. They are no longer sure they have the answer to the ills of society. Most agree with the ideas of Alfred North Whitehead in his Aims of Education, “(1) do not teach too many subjects, and (2) what you teach, you teach thoroughly.” But the crucial questions are hard to answer: What shall we teach, and, How can we do that with limited resources?

Dollar Value Of A Sheepskin

The economic crunch has come with special severity to the small private colleges, including those that are Christian. Government subsidies enable public colleges and universities to offer a quality education for much less, so especially the community junior colleges have drawn an increasingly larger percentage of students away from private colleges. One-half of all freshmen and sophomores attend local community junior colleges.

The recent recession has accentuated the demand of parents and students for a kind of college education that will pay off—and quickly—in dollars and cents. So public colleges and universities—especially the community junior colleges—are concentrating on vocational training. And students are responding. Group Attitudes Corporation’s survey shows that in 1982, 86 percent of all adults rated preparation for a career the most important reason for attending college. In response, nearly half of all bachelor degrees are now awarded in strictly occupational fields such as business and engineering. This is double the percentage of just 15 years ago. Correspondingly, enrollment in the liberal arts has dropped to a low 7 percent, a third of what it was 15 years ago. Seventy percent of all college freshmen now say they attend college to make more money. More and more, both parents and students make their choice of a college education on the basis of economic advantage.

What Should Be The Christian Response?

Of course, many Christian colleges will still stick to “business as usual.” But wise institutions will discern the times and adjust to meet the changing situation.

Many Christian colleges will quickly adapt by simply following the educational crowd. They will transform themselves into training schools to teach skills that will enable their graduates to make money. These will, in effect, become trade schools, not Christian colleges. Others will slough off the sharp edges of evangelicalism so as to appeal to a wider market. Most Roman Catholic schools, following the vast majority of Protestant colleges, are now taking this path. But why should a school continue if it has lost the reason for its existence? And certainly evangelicals have the duty to ask why they should continue to support a school that is neither Christian nor offering any educational distinctive.

Is Vocational Training Anathema?

Yet Christian colleges must take a more realistic look at the felt needs of young people and their parents. It is hard for a faculty trained in the liberal arts and dedicated to their value to meet this issue head-on. Nevertheless, although business training and other vocational skills do not make an educated person, the viable Christian college must not ignore this side of education.

On the other hand, vocation and education are not essentially contradictory. If Christian colleges are to meet the challenge from the state and community colleges, they must incorporate vocational training within their overall goals. They must explore the possibilities for an 11-month program with ties to industry that will enable a student to support himself while he gains an internship in his profession. Majors must be rethought. There is nothing unchristian in the concept of “calling” and, therefore, in the embodiment of professional and preprofessional training within a Christian education. Those who refuse to “get their fingers dirty” in the vocational goals of education will eventually find that they will have no students they can lead into the refinement of an educated person. I predict that the Christian colleges that take seriously vocational preparation, professional and preprofessional, will survive the eighties. Those that don’t, won’t.

Do Liberal Arts Have A Place?

But no responsible Christian college dare turn its back on the liberal arts and sciences. Through these studies our youth become mature. They learn to think. They discover how to weigh alternatives. They come to an understanding of society. The quality of their person broadens and deepens.

While the main defense any evangelical must make for the liberal arts is not based on economic advantage, still such arts have remarkable vocational value. We profit economically from the wisdom of the past. We learn to control nature for the long-term good of humanity. We discover how to communicate more effectively. The liberal arts and sciences are the means by which we secure our inheritance. In his intriguing volume Mega-Trends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives, John Nesbit points out that Western society is moving so fast that education is never completed. This includes skills to function effectively in the economic marketplace. We need specialists, but the person who is only a specialist soon becomes obsolete. The broadly educated generalist is the one who can adapt. He can move easily from one specialization to another. Specific vocational skills become not training for life, but more and more a temporary skill for the moment, which tomorrow will change.

The highest and best vocational training, therefore, becomes a long-term, lifetime process. And the person who is best equipped to function effectively in the marketplace of the future will be the generalist who has not only learned his economic skills, but who is also equipped by his general education to be flexible enough to make moves from one vocational skill to another as the economic picture changes. For any youth in the eighties, the best preparation to make money is to get a broad cultural education in the arts and sciences.

Biblical Instruction And Ministry

Finally, no education is complete without Christian ministries that give value to education and skills for life as well as for making a living. No sane person wants only a vocational third of a college education—but that is all most community colleges can offer. This is not to denigrate them, but only to point out their inadequacy to provide the whole that we so need for youth today. Fortunately, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade for Christ, and denominational houses can complement the economic training provided by many colleges.

But rigorous instruction is essential to equip young people with a Christian view of life and the necessary skills to enable them to function as effective, witnessing Christians. That is why we see such appalling ignorance of biblical teaching even in our finest evangelical churches. The Gallup Poll has demonstrated again and again that lay Christians in our churches simply do not know the most elementary facts of the Bible and of Christian doctrine. They have no place where they can effectively learn basic Christian teachings. And youth need solid instruction for credit that can count toward their terminal degrees. They simply do not have time for occasional Bible study without credit. The college student, with his quality time drastically limited, must choose between an “A” paper in his major study, and quality time spent on voluntary meetings and personal study for which he gets no credit.

Faced with this sort of choice, the Christian university student puts in quality time on his course work (and perhaps on the job that is essential if he is to remain in school). The solution is to allow quality time for biblical and theological education and for practical instruction in witnessing. This can be done only through offering courses that will count toward degrees.

Who wants one-third or even two-thirds of a college education? By law, it is only a private college that can offer a full three-thirds of a truly Christian education. Christian colleges can meet the challenges of higher education today, but they can do so only with the solid support of the churches and of the Christian people who see their value and are willing to pay for it.

KENNETH S. KANTZER

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