Doubts over future for US’ Christian colleges amid closures

The US has lost several of its religiously affiliated colleges and universities in recent weeks and months, fuelling suggestions that the sector is suffering heavily from both political and technological shifts among students.

Those announcing their closures include Cardinal Stritch University, Holy Names University, Cazenovia College, Presentation College, Iowa Wesleyan University, King’s College and Finlandia University.

The institutions – in locations from coast-to-coast – cited a number of financial problems tied to low enrolments.

One of the largest, Cardinal Stritch in Milwaukee, had more than 5,000 students a decade ago. In recent years, its student population fell closer to 1,000 and the institution decided it could not afford to keep operating.

The financial realities created “a no-win situation”, the president of Cardinal Stritch, Dan Scholz, told members of the campus, founded in 1937 by the Sisters of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Representatives and analysts of the sector urged caution about drawing wider conclusions from the accumulating shutdowns, noting that US higher education as a whole had been suffering since the Covid outbreak in early 2020. At the start of the current academic year, overall enrolment in US higher education was still down by nearly 6 per cent from 2019 levels, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Centre, which compiles figures for the sector.

The Clearinghouse does not have data for religiously affiliated institutions. But Fuller Higher Ed Solutions, an adviser to Christian institutions, has reported a decline of more than 6 per cent in the number of enrolments between 2012 and 2022 among a set of 93 Christian campuses that it tracks. Of those 93 institutions, 59 enrolled fewer first-year students in 2022 than they did in 2012, and only 33 enrolled more first-year students.

The Christian colleges and universities faced many of the same problems that were causing contractions and closures among their secular counterparts, said the company’s founder, Tim Fuller. He said they included the slowing and reversal of US population growth, rising public scepticism about the value of four-year degrees and pandemic-driven changes in course delivery and student behaviour.

But “there are also some factors unique to Christian higher education, such as Gen Z perceptions of faith and the church – and thus evangelical Christian higher education”, Mr Fuller acknowledged. “While this generation is very interested in spiritual matters, they go about pursuing them differently, and don’t necessarily hold to the same beliefs as their parents and grandparents,” he said.

The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, which represents about 150 institutions in the US and Canada, insisted that the sector still had many thriving and growing campuses where students and their families valued the perspectives and communities they provided.

The pandemic in particular “really gave people a chance to bring themselves back to centre, to find out what they wanted”, said the council's spokeswoman, Amanda Staggenborg.

Yet the accompanying shifts – especially the greater emphasis on online education – had been difficult for some Christian institutions, Dr Staggenborg acknowledged. “With a Christian college, it’s a little bit more challenging at times, because we do educate the whole person,” she said.

Mr Fuller, who previously served as an enrolment manager at Houghton College, said he understood that “Houghton wasn’t for everyone”. But evangelical colleges could do better by forming stronger partnerships with churches and affiliated organisations, and by better explaining the value they provided to students, he said.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com