c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Evangelical Christian colleges are attracting record numbers of applications this year in a trend that bodes well for an educational niche that was struggling to survive just a generation ago.

Applications have jumped between 8 percent and 10 percent at the 238 colleges that belong to the North American Association of Christian Admissions Professionals, according to Executive Director Chant Thompson. More applications mean more students on campuses next fall, he says, and that’s good news since 25 percent of those schools are barely breaking even financially.

Excitement is running high among administrators at Christian campuses that have long strived to grow their enrollments and fill classrooms with high-achieving students.

On the other hand, keener competition means disappointment for some anxious seniors in high school who thought their credentials were good enough to get in.

“On Jan. 15, we had thousands and thousands of applications from students who in prior years would have been admissible, but we had to wait-list them,” says James Steen, assistant vice president of admission and enrollment services at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

At Baylor, a spike in applications from 11,000 in 2004 to more than 21,000 this year is enabling the school to be choosier. In 2006, just 41 percent of Baylor applicants are getting accepted, a sharp dip from 65 percent last year and 72 percent in 2004. Meanwhile, standards seem to be rising as the average Scholastic Aptitude Test score is now 1225, up from 1198 at this point last year.

For other schools, more applications spell opportunity to boost revenue by enrolling more students. At Bethel University in St. Paul, Minn., a 5 percent growth in applications since 2000 has helped enrollment grow 10 percent over the same time period, from 832 to 923. Such enrollment growth helps the school make Christian education accessible without raising tuition more than 6 percent a year, says Jay Fedje, director of admissions.

Growing enrollment “is part of the strategy,” Fedje says. “We’re trying to increase it significantly, but strategically” by remaining what he terms a “moderately selective” school.

Higher application rates have helped even the largest and best-known evangelical colleges meet enrollment goals. Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., for instance, needs to enroll about 1,000 new students per year in order to make its annual budget work. In 2004, the school missed its target by 85 students, but a 24 percent spike in applications last year closed the gap. This year, applications have increased 2 percent over the same period from 2005.

Enrollment has increased 70 percent since 1990, from 135,000 to 230,000, at the 102 evangelical schools belonging to the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). Over the same period, enrollments at all public and private colleges increased by 13 percent and 28 percent, respectively.

This growth marks a turnaround from the 1960s and 1970s, when religious colleges struggled to attract enough students, according to Alexander Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. About 120 Christian colleges closed between 1960 and 1979, according to data collected by historian Ray Brown at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.

Observers of the trend cite multiple reasons, including relative value in an era in which tuitions have outpaced inflation. Religious denominations help contain tuition increases through subsidies often ranging from $1 million to $3 million a year, CCCU President Bob Andringa says.

But money isn’t the only factor. Students who practice a faith often want to study where their beliefs are respected, and that can be hard to find on secular campuses, says Naomi Schaefer Riley, author of “God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America.”

“There is a sense that the people who dominate the faculties at secular universities do have an antipathy toward traditional religion,” says Riley, deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal. “It’s nice for (students) to go to a place where they don’t have to always be defending their beliefs.”

Strong students sometimes see a religious environment as a factor worth considering. Helena Swanson-Nystrom, for instance, has an honors-track background in the Chicago public schools to support her applications this year to such powerhouse colleges as Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. But she’s also applying to North Park University, a lesser known Christian school, for the spiritually supportive environment there.

“It becomes harder to be a practicing Christian if there is no Christian community,” she says. Her example: Wild parties aren’t the assumed part of life at Christian colleges that they are at large, secular schools.

“It seems when people go to (big parties) they lose who they are and they become like everyone around them,” she says.

Critics see a trend toward sheltering young adults.

The rise in applications at Christian colleges points to a desire to insulate young adults from ideas and practices unlike their own, according to Philip Altbach, professor of higher education at Boston College.

“These are evangelical families that have figured out they have a choice … to keep kids on the reservation,” Altbach says. It appeals to a segment “on the fringe,” he says, who aim to remain culturally separate in many ways from society at large.

Thompson, of the Christian Admissions Professionals, confirms that evangelical students are indeed the target market. He notes that 300,000 to 400,000 evangelical students will graduate from high school each year until the generational numbers begin to decline after 2009.

“You find Christian colleges wanting to enroll a larger percentage of those students,” Thompson said.

To get them, Christian colleges are taking the initiative. Between 30 and 40 schools exhibit at large church events each fall. Students who apply online routinely receive an application fee waiver. Thousands of high school students open envelopes each year from Baylor and other schools to find an application partially filled in with their name and address. They just need to complete the next four pages.

Though recruitment efforts seem to be paying dividends, some gatekeepers are leery.

“I have talked to many colleagues at Christian colleges this year who have seen substantial growth in applications, but we all feel the applications are soft,” meaning many of those applicants aren’t likely to enroll, says Trent Argo, dean of enrollment management at Oklahoma Baptist University. “More and more students are applying and being encouraged to apply to multiple schools and are now even paying deposits at multiple schools.”

MO/PH END RNS

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