Data culled from the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities in a recent study has revealed a total of thirty evangelical colleges experienced massive growth in student enrollment during 2024, a sign that we could be on the cusp of a revival among young people. The organization said that these institutions are now setting records even after the pandemic. David Hoag, the CCU president, provided an explanation for how leaders can use this information in order to cook up a strategy to help increase those numbers while also discipling new believers.
Hoag said, “These are kind of challenging times in higher ed, we have 600,000 students at our institutions and 15,000 faculty. We want that number to keep going up, and we’re just trying to find different ways to make that happen.” For the last 14 years, enrollment in the undergraduate program has dropped by a total of 15 percent, which is more or less 2.5 million students.
While the number of colleges peaked in 2010, Christian schools have dodged this trend. According to data from the Digest of Education Statistics, schools with religious affiliation saw student declines of just 3 percent in 10 years. However secular private schools lost 18 percent of their student population in that same period. Out of all schools, evangelicals have done the best. Assemblies of God-affiliated schools grew by one-third. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran institutions grew their enrollment by 23 percent. Nondenominational colleges have expanded. By more than a quarter. One expert reported that “With only a few exceptions, the denominational institutions that decreased the most between 2010 and 2021 were mostly Mainline Protestant institutions.”
Asbury University’s vice president of enrollment and marketing, Jennifer McChord, said “This is a great time for Christian higher ed.” She went on to say “There are families out there in large quantities who are looking for authentic and intentional Christ-centered education.” “Our data is showing us that in all programs, our students are really enjoying and benefiting from the intentional community they experience at Asbury,” she went on to say “And they tend to come back for their next year.”
A significant portion of the growth has come about as a result of targeted ads being run at Christian high schools. A good example of this is Calvin University, which has witnessed an increase in international students. A whopping 20 percent of the incoming class for Calvin is coming from outside of the U.S.
“Our growth comes from an ongoing, integrated strategic plan of recruitment both within the enrollment division and across the university,” John Zimmerman, a spokesman, explained.
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Lauren Jensen, the vice president of enrollment and strategy for the college, says, “We definitely have had international students for decades here at Calvin, but it is part of our growth strategy overall.” She then told the media, “We’ve been able to continue to lean into that and have more and more countries represented.”
Another administration for the institution took an opportunity to explain what she believes is the reason why so many students are being drawn to Christian education.
“Our country is currently facing a time when higher education is in flux,” she remarked. “But we believe students at every stage of their lives can benefit from a Christ-centered education.” McChord commented, “We’ve done some really hard work over the last number of years to realign our academic programs as well as our campus experience to what this generation really wants and needs.” “But the market is really, really difficult right now” she continued.