Competition Among Colleges/Universities Make the Christian-Based Squirm

Higher education has always had competition among its institutions. For many decades, however, there was a big flow of graduating high school students who a.) thought college was the only option for them and b.) had parents or some other means to pay the cost.  Now, both of these variables are sinking for various reasons and colleges are scrambling to operate in this new situation. Smaller private places, including Christian, are faced with more headwinds than public ones because interest in religion is wanning. Administrators have to walk a tight rope between the changing secular values and the "old time religion" of their donors, parents and some faculty.

The link focuses on the Christian institution Wheaton College in Chicago. Students today come there with less understanding of the basic theology. Their primary interest is in getting a job after graduation. They don't take courses in the liberal arts college so enrollment there, including religion, is falling. Those departments are shrinking. Wheaton is tooling up to offer an engineering degree. It's goodbye to the old Wheaton.

Most readers already know the headwinds faced by government sponsored institutions. Their enrollments have also been falling along with state financial support. There are some economies of scale and state universities can weather these problems a little better. 

I'm sure alumni support of religious based universities is more robust than it is for most state universities and this will help keep them going. In the long run, however, tuition is the bread and butter of religious universities and they need student numbers. 

I wonder what will happen to athletics in these small religious institutions. Those of us who have been faculty members in state institutions roll our eyes at the money spent on athletics. Many in the public think athletics make profits that help to fund the rest of the institution. Just the opposite is the case. A few small schools have dropped football. Perhaps others will do the same.