The Importance of Education in a Negative World
How a Student Can Find His Way in the Darkness
Aaron Renn’s recent book, Life in the Negative World, illuminates the distaste our culture has for Christianity. His thesis is that in recent years, our culture has moved from a generally positive view of Christianity (pre–1994), to a neutral view (1994–2014), to an overall negative view of Christianity (2014–present). As such, there are unique challenges we face in the coming years and strategic decisions that faithful, Protestant Christians need to make. Christians need to be effective with what they do and say, and to that end, this article is about how to acquire those tools—in particular, by means of a college education. While Renn has provided excellent principles in his book, he notes that these principles require putting into practice—thus, this article aims to be practical.
There have been a couple of articles applying Renn’s Negative world concept to colleges at the institutional level, such as Nathan Finn’s article for World. But as per Renn’s opening, we also need to revise plans for moving forward at a personal level. Thus, we need some practical guidance for students on actually choosing a college. My audience for this article is twofold: high school students considering college and parents who are or will be guiding their children through this process.
I am a college recruiter and admissions counselor for New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, ID. I tell you this for two reasons: first, for ethos. I have had hundreds of conversations with high school juniors and seniors, answered questions from parents, and generally helped young people think through their options and consider what path to choose when it comes to higher education. The other reason I tell you this is to remind you of the source. Don’t worry—I am not paid by commission.
The Lay of the Land: Higher Education
Colleges have long been considered the best path to a good career and a well-informed life. And the numbers reflect this: the US Department of Education estimates that for the academic year 2020-2021, there were nearly four thousand degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the United States. But in recent years, this number has been declining. In 2010, there were nearly 4,600 of these institutions. According to reports by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, this decline was only accelerated by the pandemic. Since 2020, enrollment has dropped by nearly 1.4 million students (or 9.4% of all undergraduate college enrolled students). Comparing enrollments from spring 2021 to spring 2022 alone reveals a drop of 4.7 percent, or 662,000 fewer students from one year to the next.
What are the reasons for this? There are myriad reasons for this, but one particularly compelling one is that, although the cost of a college education is growing exponentially, the value of the education is not. Broadly speaking, students have been spending less and less time on their studies. According to The Falling Time Cost of College, written by Phillip Babcock and Mindy Marks, a full-time college student in 1961 dedicated forty hours per week to attending classes and studying for those classes. By 2003, students spent 27 hours working on their classes each week. And according to data from the BLS based on student surveys conducted in 2011–2015, college students were spending—on average—17.5 hours a week on their studies. As Dr. Benjamin Merkle, president of New Saint Andrews College, points out, this decrease is coupled with a steady “grade inflation.” Though college students are studying for less than half of the “full-time” students from 1961, they are three times more likely to get an A. Just scroll through https://www.gradeinflation.com to see the data. Everyone gets an award, no matter how mediocre their work is. An A from your professor used to mean that your work had no room for improvement—now, it is simply a mark of completion. Can students actually learn in an environment like that?
Is it worth it?
All this begs the question: is higher education even worth it? Many students have not thought critically before getting a degree, and now they owe tens of thousands of dollars or more for a degree they are not even using. Within 5 and 10 years after graduating, nearly half of all graduates are working in fields other than what they received their degrees in, per the Wall Street Journal.
There are three reasons high school students should still consider higher education. I will couch them nicely in terms of Renn’s three qualities to improve at the personal level; obedience, excellence, and resilience.
At a basic level, higher education inculcates obedience. Ideally, any student should already have a good foundation in obeying parents, church leaders, and elementary and secondary teachers. College puts you in a situation where you are surrounded by people who are smarter than you. You are surrounded by authority figures—your professors—and your life is structured around the attendant responsibilities you have as a student.
Excellence is the stated aim of many colleges. This goal has been somewhat protected because colleges have shifted from a holistic education to something more like job preparation. This shift is lamentable, but at the very least, businesses hiring students from college programs require some degree of excellence—otherwise, they would not make good employees and have a poor return on investment. Colleges therefore had some way to measure how their graduates were doing; in the form of job placement and retention, income, and advancement in the students’ selected fields. Excellence in academic work and studies still exists, even if many colleges seem to be obsessing over DEI requirements and not the education they offer students. So far as academic integrity is concerned, the recent deposition of Claudine Gay, Harvard’s ex-president, shows that blatant plagiarism is still deplored—at least when it is caught.
Finally, resilience is fostered by the very way college is set up. Ideally, colleges should push students to their limits and challenge them with their assignments. While a GPA has dropped in value lately, as we have already touched on, the very act of passing college and graduating shows that the student spent the last four years putting down the game controller and writing a paper when they did not want to, or working on a paper late into the night, or otherwise taking the time to work on a project and submit it to the scrutiny of their professors. Some institutions are more unaffected by GPA grade creep, which means that graduating with honors and good grades from these schools is an actual achievement that an employer would recognize.
Colleges, of course, can fall on a wide array of spectrums for inculcating the above points. Some colleges can drive the students to become something greater, light a fire under them, and give them candid feedback not only on their work but on their character as well. Others provide a chance for young adults to avoid responsibility for four years, partying and living riotously with little or no challenge and improvement of character, before facing the difficult life beyond college. So how do you find the former and avoid the latter? How can you find a college that will improve your personal knowledge, wisdom, and character, equipping you with the tools needed to navigate this Negative World?
Christian vs. Secular
The question of Christian versus secular colleges has been treated at length elsewhere, so I will only touch on it briefly here.
If you attend a secular university, you must recognize that you will be surrounded by people who hate you and your God. Like Joseph in Egypt, or like Daniel in Babylon, there is still an opportunity for you to thrive. But you have to steel yourself, knowing that there will be many battles you need to be ready for. Your mentors, though intelligent, will not be spiritual mentors. Your peers, unless you can find a set of strong Christian students, will not provide you with spiritual support. And in a Negative World, Christian students have targets on their backs. According to a study by the Barna Group, roughly 70% of high school students who enter college as professing Christians will leave with little to no faith. As Dr. Merkle has written elsewhere, this means a college student’s faith has a statistically lower chance of survival than the men storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. It is a sobering statistic, and one that Christian applicants must be aware of before attending a secular college.
If you attend a Christian college or university, make sure that you attend a robustly Christian college. The danger here is that it is easy for certain institutions to appear orthodox and polished on the outside, but once you attend, you start finding skeletons in the closet. Ultimately, there is less danger in learning from an enemy when you recognize them as your enemy. What is more damaging and insidious is learning from someone who says they are your friend and fellow Christian, but turns out to be false and wayward. Institutional drift can be seen in many places, from schools to churches to families—and the same is true for Christian higher ed. Find a college that is full-throatedly committed to orthodox Christianity, that does not waiver on its Christian beliefs, and that is building a strong community around itself.
Chasing the White Stag
Finding a college that trains its students in obedience, excellence, and resilience can feel like chasing the White Stag—an elusive, mythical creature from Celtic mythology said to bring good fortune to the few who glimpse it. But a good college is not unattainable. Chasing this white stag is not easy, but it is worth it. Here we come to the practical steps you can take when considering a college.
Visit the College
In a digital age, we do not (and cannot feasibly) perform in-depth research on everything we read about or purchase online. Some things do not warrant such research, like buying a pair of pants. Best case, you return them, and worst case, you have a pair of pants that do not fit. But the stakes are high when it comes to college programs. Colleges can look great on their website, and their admissions counselors can be winsome, but colleges can look great from a thousand miles away. Ill-fitting pants are low-stakes; but a college education is four years of a very pivotal time of life.
Visiting the school can answer these pain points. Visit intentionally, and come prepared. When you visit, sit in on classes. If you come to marvel at the neat buildings and big libraries, you are not likely going to gather that much from your visit. You would be surprised about how many school tours do not include sitting in on a class—often, a recruiter simply shows you all the school’s shiny amenities. But you shouldn’t attend college for the rock climbing wall or the cafeteria or the lazy river. It’s the education that matters. When you visit, talk to current students. Talk to some faculty that you would study under. Usually, the school is happy to show you as much as possible, but do not just do the things that they have put together for visitors. Ask to have lunch with a student in a field you are interested in. Ask them, “Is this college what you expected it to be?” “Do you like your classes? Teachers? Peers?” “Is this education valuable?” See as much student life as you can—if possible, participate in it.
Another benefit of visiting a college is that you get a chance to see the community around it. What impact is the college having on the community? Are the students living in a bubble of campus life, or are they integrating with their local church and civil community? In my capacity as a recruiter, I always recommend that prospective students and families who visit stay for a church service. Finding a solid church in the area is just as important as finding the right college. Your spiritual life should never be neglected in favor of intellectual prowess.
Identify Your Goals
Most colleges market themselves as expensive job training. You get a degree in a certain field, and once you graduate, you will get a job in that field. This specialization of degrees is a very recent phenomenon in higher education. But to navigate the Negative world, Christians need more than just job training. What kind of tools should you be looking for? When you graduate, what equipment should you have? Thinking well, speaking well, identifying and combating an argument, living well, taking charge of responsibilities, work, and faith. College should train you in virtue and character.
Find a college that will treat you as a student and as an adult, not like a child who needs to be fed and clothed. Find a college where the work is uncomfortably difficult. Treat it like a full-time job, if possible. Your college should not just be four years of affirming how smart you are and graduating with a perfect 4.0 GPA. In order to build muscle, you break it down first by exercising. In order to strengthen mental muscles and fortitude, your academic work should be dismantled by intellectual superiors, and then you try again. When a college pushes you to exceed, this will translate not only to your work but also to your responsibilities with regard to your family, church, and community.
Observe the Fruits
Meet alumni from the school. Observe how they are doing—and I do not just mean their salary or their job titles. Spiritually, how are they doing? Find a Christian graduate from that university (an easy task if the college you are considering is Christian; tougher if secular). Universities like to tout their famous graduates—but often, these students have graduated twenty years previously, and there is no guarantee that the college has maintained its quality of education in recent years. Talk to a recent graduate.
If the college is Christian, ask how many male graduates serve as church leaders after graduating. Ask what the divorce rate is. Ask how many alumni faithfully attend church. Ask for the data. Chances are, the college will be keeping track of these numbers, and this will give you some insight and some numbers to compare. Or, if the college does not keep track of these numbers, perhaps that will tell you what you need to know. What is important to the college? What do they want to see with their graduates? This is revealed by the data they collect.
Often, a Christian college will have an excellent statement of faith and mission statement. For example, the mission statement of New Saint Andrews College is “To graduate leaders who shape culture, living faithfully under the lordship of Jesus Christ.” Is the college fulfilling this mission statement? The alumni—the fruits of the college—will tell. What is the output? Are their students obedient and resilient? Do the students go on to be excellent in the fields that they have studied in, or are they middling? Are students technically smart, but spiritually hollow? A tree that produces bad fruit is just as undesirable as one that produces no fruit.
In Laches, Plato’s Socratic dialogue on the virtue of courage, Socrates says that one of the best ways of raising a courageous man is by placing him under a mentor who has mentored courageous men. You find good mentors by observing their students. Do not just look at the input of the college; find its output.
I hope this has given you a few practical things to consider. We are entering a new era of higher education, and there is plenty more to say about tuition, scholarships, amenities, internships, choosing a degree, and the like. Ultimately, choosing a good college comes down to doing your due diligence. There are so many choices out there, both good and bad. Do not just settle for what is most expedient. Find something that will train you in obedience, excellence, and resilience. These virtues will be crucial to refine and grow as we and our children navigate the Negative World.
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