Christian Colleges and the Need for Really Being Creative

I coach at a Christian college that charges nearly $100,000 for a bachelors degree, when you include tuition, room and board and other fees. I am told that this is typical and I know that it is only slightly higher than most of the colleges I compete with in recruiting.

Frankly, I think it is disgusting. It is an obscene amount of money and I think it has just about reached it's limit. I know that the money is spent on getting quality professors that keep us competitive. I know that the money is needed to make sure that we have the best equipment to keep us competitive. I know that the money is needed to maintain state of the art facilities to keep us competitive. But it is time to break the vicious cycle.

We need to become an institution that is dedicated to the proposition of really, not kidding around, I'm serious, reducing the cost of a college education. We need to get extremely creative about making it more affordable. It won't be comfortable but it must be done if we are going to keep Christian as an adjective.

My brother made an interesting comment. He said that probably the average dorm room is nicer than the average bedroom of an American teen. The reason is we are recruiting students based on materialism. That means we have to have nice dorm rooms because those students are going to see nice dorm rooms at competing institutions. I think we need to lower costs and start recruiting on virtue, heart and passion.