Kley Sippel and his family had to find additional resources to attend Samford University when his father lost his job in 2007 (Samford photo by Caroline Summers).
|
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — For thousands of students at Baptist colleges, the excitement of the start of fall classes is being muted by a harsh reality this year: Economic hardship is making the already high cost of private college almost untenable for many families.
“I can’t imagine how my father feels knowing there are $60,000 in school bills coming in the next two years,” said Kley Sippel, whose father lost his job just before Kley enrolled as a freshman at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala., two years ago. The family has been on a financial roller-coaster ever since, making the 19-year-old’s dream of graduating from a private — and hence more costly — Christian school increasingly tenuous.
Across the country, families and schools alike are digging deep to keep their students enrolled in Baptist and other Christian colleges and universities, which account for three percent of all college students in the United States.
Conspiring against all their efforts is a litany of sobering trends — rising unemployment, tanking family assets, increased college costs, shrinking college endowments and a stingy loan market. The number of families denied federal school loans has increased more than 250 percent in the past two years — from 10 percent of applicants to 25 percent.
As a result, as students geared up to return to campuses this year, an unprecedented number resorted to the previously little-known strategy of appealing their financial-aid packages — asking their colleges to reconsider that all-important aid determination because of family hardship.
Because families of college students file financial-aid requests using their tax returns from the previous year, many may have drastically different incomes by the time their students actually get to campus in the fall. The federal government, which determines how much a family should be able to pay for school, allows those students to appeal based on “special circumstances,” such as when a parent loses a job after the paperwork is filed.
Nationwide, the number of appeals has skyrocketed since last year. More than 100,000 students have already filed special-circumstances reviews, and that number is expected to top 140,000 this year, according to the Washington Post.
That trend was confirmed by officials at several Baptist institutions consulted for this article.
“At Campbellsville, we have experienced a 50 percent increase in the number of families requesting our review of their financial circumstances,” said Chris Tolson, director of financial aid at Campbellsville University in Kentucky. “The majority of requests were due to parents becoming unemployed or under-employed.”
Mentor Melinda Ward Murton, a Campbellsville University senior, gives instructions to her group of first-year students during this year’s orientation (Campbellsville photo by André Tomaz).
|
Financial-aid amounts are up 20 percent this year at Campbellsville, in part because the Obama administration pumped millions more into federal Pell Grants, Tolson said, in an e-mail message. The 2,600-student school is in the heart of economically depressed Appalachia.
This time of year, all colleges are trying to minimize “summer melt,” the inevitable annual attrition of students who decide over summer vacation to stay home or attend a cheaper school in the fall. In addition to holding down costs, Baptist colleges say getting personally involved with each student’s situation has allowed them to hang onto most.
Samford’s personal approach worked for Kley Sippel. “The financial-aid department is very relational,” he said. “They take the time to understand your personal circumstances. They look at the family, the job, where other siblings are in school, and they make every effort to make it work…. If they see that you’re willing to sacrifice, they are willing to step up to the plate.”
Only about 20 of the 750 new students accepted for the fall term at Samford were unable to enroll because of unresolved financial issues, said Lane Smith, the school’s director of financial aid. “In this environment, it probably is a pretty good number.”
Smith has been reviewing each special-circumstances appeal personally since March. “In most cases, we were able to find additional help, whether in terms of additional institutional aid or a federal grant that they qualified for or a subsidized loan,” he said. "But if there was something like a $7,000 gap, we couldn’t make that up.”
Smith said that Samford started preparing a year and a half ago for the economic crunch they knew would hit this fall. Everyone from the university president and administrators to faculty joined a “concerted effort” to hold onto their new students, he said.
Incoming freshmen listen to announcements before lunch during orientation this fall at Campbellsville (Ky.) University (Campbellsville photo by André Tomaz).
|
Samford officials are happy about the low fall attrition figures, but the worst may yet be ahead, Smith said. “A lot of schools are worried about next year. A lot of kids already had their minds made up about this year.”
Other Baptist schools are similarly worried, so officials are taking extraordinary steps to try to hang onto every student who is accepted for enrollment — from calling each prospective student’s household to signing tuition-cap pledges with four-year students.
Almost all of the schools contacted for this article said they have put more money into student aid. Several schools said their tuition increases this year were the smallest in two decades. The same was true for about half of all private colleges, according to a national survey.
Ouachita Baptist University, like most schools, saw the endowment funds that support scholarships shrink in the past year, said Brett Powell, vice president of administrative services at the Arkadelphia, Ark.-based school. He noted that they were not able to award as many scholarships as last year, and that overall financial aid is “down just a little bit.”
The number of new students will be down slightly, he estimated, but Ouachita’s retention rate for returning students “is going to be a little bit of improvement.” Final numbers are not yet available, he said, but “it looks like less than a 1 percent decline” in total enrollment for the 1,500-student school.
At Union University in Jackson, Tenn., financial-aid appeals quadrupled this year, said Rich Grimm, vice president for enrollment. “This year we had over 130 special-circumstances requests,” he said. “To a great degree we were able to manage those circumstances for those families.”
“Only four students couldn’t get their financial circumstances worked out,” Grimm said. A total of 545 freshmen showed up for classes this fall, he said, up from 460 last year.
Financial counselors start talking to parents “very early in the process,” he explained. And then, after bills for the fall semester are sent out, “every one of our new students gets a call from an enrollment counselor,” he said, “because up to that point, until you get a bill, it doesn’t register.”
It appears the efforts to combat “summer melt” are working. A recent survey of 300 private colleges, conducted by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, indicates a tiny increase in average undergraduate enrollment — up about 0.2 percent over fall 2008.
Kley Sippel and his family had to find additional resources to attend Samford University when his father lost his job in 2007 (Samford photo by Caroline Summers).
|
At Mercer University in Georgia, already one of the largest historically Baptist institutions, undergraduate enrollment is up 7 percent this fall over last, an unusually high jump. Total enrollment — including undergrad, graduate and professional programs — topped 8,000 for the first time ever, said university spokesman Larry Brumley.
To address rising tuition — and concerns that some students take five-plus years to complete a degree — Mercer instituted the “four-year pledge.” The signed agreement between students and the university says that, if a student follows the academic guidance of Mercer’s counselors, they won’t have to pay more than four years’ worth of tuition. If it takes longer to complete a degree, Brumley said, “then they won’t pay Mercer any tuition.”
Christian families pay a high price to send their kids to private colleges. School administrators say that, in tough times, they have to make sure the Christian educational experience is worth the extra cost.
"You have to focus on the unique value of a Christian school,” said Grimm. “We remind students, ‘You chose Union because of these benefits…. We admit we’re more expensive, but here’s why.’”
Still, said Grimm and others, the cost of Christian colleges has to be competitive. “The only way schools like Union can do well is through price sensitivity and holding down tuition,” said Grimm, noting Union costs “$5,000 less than the average private school.”
Kley Sippel said his decision to return to Samford for his junior year, despite his family’s financial hardship, has challenged their faith and their finances. After his father lost a well-paying job, the South Carolina family had to sell a house it owned in order to pay for Kley’s freshman year.
“For my family, our faith has made the difference,” Kley said, recalling the Sippels’ two-year financial struggle. “I can’t imagine what a family would do if they didn’t have that.”
So far, with financial aid from Samford and the federal government, he has been able to complete two years toward his degree in economics and marketing.
The Sippel family’s hardship qualified Kley for additional financial aid this year, which kept him in school. His father has since found a job. It doesn’t pay as much, but it helps.
But that also means the family will qualify for less financial aid for Kley’s final two years.
-30-
Greg Warner is a freelance writer in Jacksonville, Fla., and the former executive editor of Associated Baptist Press.