It is time to apply for college. We want readers of Baylyblog to consider one new option, Athanasius College. While developing the program over the past two years, our commitments have been simple: to get back to traditional, orthodox Christian foundations in every aspect of our lives, including especially education.
Recently, we finalized tuition fees for our inaugural year and have released them here. They are affordable: $8,000 for a full-time student expecting to enroll in 12 to 18 hours, with additional rates starting at $500 a year for courses taken at IU. Students will not be eligible for federal funding—we’d have to be accredited for that. Instead, we expect them to make up the cost through summer and part-time jobs or other means.
The problem
In today’s higher education market, our price makes a difference. Here are a series of charts showing the scandal of the financial costs and benefits of higher education today. Take a look at them.
Students can attend Athanasius College without burdening their future and their families with insurmountable debt. For most students, such debt has simply become the norm. According to a recent series of posts by the New York Times the average undergraduate debt now approaches $25,000, an average that does not take into account the cost of professional or graduate degrees, whose prices often soar past six digits. And, according to the same report, 9 percent of borrowers will have defaulted on these loans by the end of this year.
Tuition underlies this crisis. Harvard now charges $38,840 just for tuition, and the tuition charged by Christian colleges is not far behind. Here's a list of what various Christian colleges charge...
by University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter. Originally published in 1987, Hunter's work was based upon a careful survey of students at Evangelical colleges and seminaries, including Wheaton College, Gordon College, Westmont College, Seattle-Pacific University, Taylor University, Messiah College, Fuller Theological Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Wheaton Graduate School, and Westminster Theological Seminary.
). But you know, George Gilder is gauche. Admitting you've read him is sort of like admitting to being a collector of Dennis Rodman memorabilia or a fan of Charles Murray. Anyhow, did you get that "except perhaps in very conservative communities?"
As I've written before, Clearnote Fellowship has founded