A Guide for Our Moment - American Reformer

Building Awareness, Transparency, and Trust in Christian Higher Ed

The American system of higher education is beset with existential challenges that threaten its long-term stability and success. Opinion polls suggest that large segments of the general public have lost confidence in the value of higher education, with Republicans citing political agendas run amok and Democrats expressing concerns over ballooning college costs. Adding financial insult to reputational injury, the industry has also witnessed a significant decline in its customer base, resulting from both demographic and attitudinal shifts: rising cohorts are smaller than in the past, and fewer college-aged students are choosing traditional postsecondary pathways.

The current environment is particularly treacherous for institutions of Christian higher education, which typically fund most of their operating budgets from a combination of student tuition, fees, room, and board. Because educational supply cannot remain constant in the face of shrinking student demand, experts anticipate an uptick in college closures and mergers in the coming years. In response, the focus of some Christian commentators has moved beyond the prevention of closures to asking what it means for an institution to “finish well.”

For the sake of the church, however, Christian higher education cannot simply accept decline. Christian colleges and universities are essential parachurch organizations that perform a vital function that the church typically cannot fulfill on its own. By marshalling academic resources to equip students with a Christian worldview across all areas of human endeavor and then deploying young professionals throughout society, Christian colleges and universities develop the rising generation of believers who will support, serve, and build the local church for years to come.

Success in this environment will require Christian colleges to maintain robust student enrollments, which in turn will require cultivating greater awareness among the faithful. Many Christian families have tired of the cultural convulsions erupting on numerous college campuses and have therefore become skeptical of higher education. Prospective students and their parents are looking for a real alternative to what’s on offer at the local public university, but most are unable to find useful information about college options beyond for-profit ranking schemes and institutional marketing materials.

Enter the Center for Academic Faithfulness & Flourishing (CAFF). A nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening authentically Christian higher education, CAFF has released a first-of-its kind online directory of Christian higher education distinguished by its singular focus on market transparency, an approach that addresses two shortcomings inherent in most college guides. The first is the problem of bias, which arises when a guide’s authors seek to rank or rate institutions and inescapably insert their own weights and value judgments when calculating composite scores and overall grades. The second is the problem of relevance, which occurs when a guide’s authors focus on measures that matter more to higher education insiders than to prospective families. As a result, guides that suffer from these two shortcomings offer the promise of informed decision-making but fail to provide true transparency.

Rather than offering complicated rating schemes that obscure or minimize certain institutional characteristics, the CAFF College Guide presents objective, independently verified, and trustworthy information on the items of greatest concern to Christian students and their parents. In addition to the standard features common to nearly all college guides—degrees offered, academic majors, acceptance rate, cost of attendance, and extracurricular opportunities—the CAFF College Guide also includes information that reveals the contours of a college’s Christian character, such as its theological commitments, spiritual life programming, lifestyle expectations, and residence life policies.

The result is a searchable online resource that enables parents and prospective students to gain a global view of the Christian college market and make institutional comparisons across a wide range of characteristics. The ability to make objective comparisons using comprehensive information is critical to finding the right institutional fit; because every student is uniquely created in the image of God, personal needs and preferences will vary—even between siblings from the same family. By reporting relevant and unbiased information regarding the rich tapestry of Christian higher education, the CAFF College Guide empowers young adults and their parents to make informed and therefore confident decisions regarding their college choice.

For the foreseeable future, Christian colleges will likely face financial headwinds, while Christian families will undoubtedly be forced to navigate societal challenges. And yet, despite these unfavorable conditions, the divine call to institutional faithfulness and personal stewardship will also endure. In this environment, the key to organizational persistence will be to swim against the cultural tide, and the surest strategy for maintaining one’s faith during the college years will be to pair heightened awareness with intentionality. The CAFF College Guide will facilitate both of these endeavors by reinforcing the symbiotic relationship between faithful Christian families and faithful Christian colleges, and in so doing, will strengthen and advance Christ’s church.