The Challenge of Christian University Enrollment

Hint: The current market pool isn't large enough for everybody

An excerpt from chapter six of The Fearless Christian University.

I analyzed the enrollment history from 2011 to 2019 at twenty-five CCCU institutions. I stopped with the Fall of 2019 so as to avoid the confounding effect of the Covid-19 crisis. In order to estimate the traditional student enrollment at the institutions, I used an age breakdown available in IPEDS.¹ It allows a separation of enrollment into those under twenty-five and those twenty-five and older.² This provides a rough approximation of the traditional population (even though there may be older traditional students or younger degree completion or graduate students).

Enrollment Under Age 25 for 25 CCCU institutions (labels removed)

An examination of Christian University enrollments over time shows a very mixed pattern. Some schools, especially those in thriving communities or staking out very conservative ideologies, have shown tremendous growth year over year for a decade. Others have seemed relatively flat, although the internal dynamics across programmatic offerings masks a more complicated struggle. Of course, many smaller institutions that lack a national reputation have been hemorrhaging students for years.

It seems overly simplistic to say, but what all of these institutions need is more students. The challenge over the next decade is that these students will look very different from Christian University students of the past. Reaching out to new populations of students will require re-articulating the university mission in ways that resonate with the younger generation.

One way to examine this challenge is by starting with the available population. In 2022, there were 21.6 million Americans between the age of fifteen and nineteen – a likely target population for Christian University enrollment. The most recent American Values Survey from PRRI shows that nine percent of Gen Z identify as white evangelicals, the predominant market for Christian institutions. As of 2020, eight-seven percent of youth were high school graduates. Multiplying those figures, leaves just under two million potential students. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that sixty-two percent of high school graduates attend college of any type. Multiplying by these two percentages, leaves just about one million potential students. Given that we began with a five-year window, that leaves two hundred thousand. Dividing that market the course of the CCCU’s 130 schools yields 1,500 potential students each year, a figure about one thousand students below the median traditional enrollment of the schools in the analysis above.

We can also examine these patterns beginning with institutions rather than individuals. The National Center for Educational Statistics provides a breakdown of total enrollment in higher education and sets aside religious institutions. For the fall of 2019 (our benchmark above), they show 19.6 million students enrolled in colleges or universities in America. Religious institutions made up 1.86 million of that total (9.5% -- very close to the PRRI figures). There were 862 religious institutions, a significantly larger figure than the 130 school in the CCCU as it includes Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Mormon, and other groups. Even including these other schools, the places the average enrollment at 2,158. If we assume that 65% of enrollment is made up of traditional students, as we saw above, that leaves an undergraduate average of just over 1,400 students per institution.

Whether we start with individuals or institutions, we get the same result: there are not enough potential students to support the current institutions, at least using current recruiting strategies. Certainly, there will always be winners and losers in a competitive higher education market. But the gap between the haves and have-nots will only grow wider unless something changes dramatically.

Institutions have attempted to respond to enrollment uncertainty is some predictable ways. They have added specialized graduate programs, hoping to meet needs of the broader geographic community while tapping new markets. They have looked at the interests of traditional applicants who didn’t enroll to see if they can meet a specific demand with a new program offering. They have entered into partnerships with third party vendors to expand online offerings.

The new program initiatives prove to be riskier than they appeared. The new graduate program is successful until the market gets sated. The new program identified from the applicant pool proves to be harder to enroll as student interests move to the next new thing. The third-party vendor doesn’t have a deep understanding of the institutional ethos and the online program begins to feel like a turnkey operation.

Institutions have financed these initiatives by reducing existing programs with small numbers of majors or by consolidating offerings. Faculty positions are eliminated. Over time, the central focus of the institution shifts away from liberal arts and toward increasingly vocational offerings.

The long-term impact of these strategies is to weaken the “soul” of the Christian Liberal Arts University. Generalist faculty members are expendable relative to the specialization needed for new programs. Use of adjunct faculty increases exponentially.

Students and alumni notice that the institution isn’t the same as what they had originally believed. Retention becomes a challenge and alumni referrals decrease, both of which only exacerbate the initial enrollment challenge.

There is another potential solution to the demographic shifts: to radically widen the recruitment pool. Rather than facing already fierce competition among the traditional evangelical market, a Fearless Christian University would recognize the opportunities present among GenZ in general. A close look at this generation shows that the questions they are asking may be a surprising match for values of the Christian University.  

NOTE: No newsletter next week. Traveling to Indiana for birth of new granddaughter.

1. Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System from the National Center for Education Statistics at the US Department of Education.

2. I also analyze total enrollment, which includes graduate and degree completion programs.