(Editor’s Note: Since conducting the interviews with these Christian college presidents a few months ago, we have learned that the Comprehensive Appropriations Act of 2020 will provide over $20 billion in additional funding for higher education in the United States. While most of that money will be sent to large universities, the 18 accredited Christian church colleges and universities will qualify for a total of approximately $14 million in 2021 for student grants and specific needs by the institution.)
_ _ _
By Justin Horey
The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating financial effect on many small businesses and nonprofit organizations in 2020. But Christian colleges and universities fared relatively well, due in large part to major government assistance programs and surprisingly stable support from churches and individual donors.
While the future remains unclear, the financial impact on Christian colleges has been minimal thus far. Four Christian college presidents from the United States and Canada spoke with Christian Standard about their experiences related to the pandemic and its impact on their schools’ finances. Most had remarkably similar experiences, and most would agree with their colleague who said, “We’ve got a good story here.”
The Past: Government Stimulus
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, approved by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in March 2020, provided two primary sources of relief funds to assist colleges and universities in the United States: the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). The terms of the CARES Act were so generous to institutions of higher learning that some large, well-endowed private schools like Harvard University were criticized for accepting assistance that might have been more useful to smaller organizations.
The Paycheck Protection Program provided small businesses of various kinds with forgivable loans to be used for payroll in the spring of 2020. Dr. David Fincher, president of Central Christian College of the Bible (CCCB) in Moberly, Missouri, who also currently leads the Association of Christian Church Colleges and Universities, said the PPP provided “immediate breathing room” to Christian colleges and kept administrators from impulsively cutting staff and faculty out of fear in the early days of the pandemic. CCCB received almost $600,000 in PPP funds. In Fincher’s estimation, by providing a source of funds to continue paying employees without interruption, “the Paycheck Protection Program probably made every college’s fiscal year look better than it would have otherwise.”
Carolina Christian College also applied for and received funds from the Paycheck Protection Program. Dr. LaTanya Tyson, president of the college located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said the windfall was especially helpful in the summer months. Thanks to the PPP funds, Tyson said, “Everyone was able to be paid over the summer without having to seek out additional donations.”
The Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, meanwhile, was intended to directly assist universities and university students with financial hardships caused by the pandemic. According to the program’s guidelines, institutions of higher learning were required to distribute at least half of their HEERF grants as direct payments to students. Any remaining funds could be used to offset other costs incurred directly by the schools—for example, to reimburse the cost of tuition refunds.
Christian colleges associated with the Restoration Movement received HEERF grants ranging from approximately $50,000 to more than $1 million. Fincher is aware of roughly $6 million in total HEERF grants to Christian colleges.
At Carolina Christian College, the HEERF grant enabled students to stay on campus, buy technology they needed, and keep learning when classes transitioned to remote learning. The resources also helped nontraditional students, many of whom were not able to work when stay-at-home orders were issued.
The U.S. government provided millions of dollars in assistance to colleges in 2020. “The government gave colleges the unexpected, short-term blessing of replacing what was lost,” CCCB’s Fincher said. “Ideally, the CARES Act gave schools enough breathing room to get through this fiscal year as they normally would.” His college participated in both PPP and HEERF, but Fincher said the effects of the government assistance were just short term, “a blessing, but a blip.”
In Canada, no such programs were available to Christian colleges. Though the Canadian economy was significantly affected by the pandemic, their federal government offered only small tax breaks to institutions of higher learning in 2020. Dr. Stanley Helton, president of Alberta Bible College, said his school was ineligible for other assistance because of large gifts it received at the end of 2019.
The Present: Income and Expenses
Because aid from the U.S. government was intended to be a short-term solution, colleges and universities have continued to closely monitor their income and expenses.
“This year has been unprecedented for all of us—at least in our lifetimes,” said Kevin Ingram, president of Manhattan (Kansas) Christian College. “But all of our Bible colleges have had financial ups and downs over the years. That part’s not unprecedented.”
Thankfully, Manhattan Christian did not experience a significant drop in donations in 2020. In fact, none of the schools interviewed for this article reported major changes in incoming gifts. Ingram shared that one of the college’s larger supporting churches planned to suspend its financial support during the first month of the shutdown, but the church resumed donations to the school after receiving its own PPP grant.
Not only did MCC avoid a drop in financial support, the college actually received some unexpected contributions in 2020. Those gifts were particularly beneficial, because the school refunded nine weeks’ worth of housing and dining fees to students last spring. Still, the college continued to operate—albeit in a different way.
“We had to close our campus, not shut down our mission,” Ingram said.
Manhattan Christian College incurred a number of new expenses in response to the pandemic. The school spent more on personal protective equipment (PPE), cleaning supplies, and additional cleaning than in prior years. Operating a college is always a multifaceted undertaking, but Ingram said it was even more involved at the start of the 2020-21 school year.
“This fall, we were opening not only a college, but also—in a sense—a restaurant, two hotels, an event center, and a church.”
Thankfully, none of the colleges that participated in this article reported a significant drop in enrollment due to COVID-19. At Manhattan, enrollment was down only about 7 percent for the fall semester. Prior to 2020, Ingram said, “We already had some volatility in enrollment because of dwindling high school populations.”
Overall, the unexpected costs of the pandemic have been offset by unexpected income at Manhattan Christian College.
“For the last six months, finances have been pretty much balanced out,” Ingram said,
The same is true at Central Christian College of the Bible.
“We haven’t needed to cut employees at this point, and our giving has stayed reasonably stable,” Fincher said.
At Alberta Bible College, “the pandemic has had minimal effect on our bottom line financially,” Stan Helton said. Most students at ABC are adult learners, so the college has no on-campus student housing. The college had been building what Helton called “a good online platform” for years before the coronavirus outbreak began in North America. In fact, ABC moved all of its classes online one week before the first COVID-19 shutdowns because a snowstorm last winter made travel to the campus almost impossible. As a result, when lockdown orders were issued in Alberta, no classes at ABC had to be canceled or rescheduled. The college has continued conducting classes remotely; at the time of this writing, it still was not offering any on-campus classes.
At Carolina Christian College, Tyson said the pandemic gave leaders the opportunity to think strategically and grow the school. CCC is a very small college with less than 100 students, but Tyson said, “Enrollment is up from last year, which of course is a positive thing.”
CCC has made small but significant changes, like hiring new bookkeepers that specialize in higher education, saving 20 percent on accounting costs in the process. Such a change might be insignificant at a larger college, but not at CCC. “Because we are so small, we can maximize this resource to get a lot done,” Tyson said. The college is also embarking on more notable changes, like improving and expanding its student housing.
The Future: Outlook Still Uncertain
David Fincher took the long view when discussing the financial effects of COVID-19.
“I think the pandemic is going to make every college reassess how it is spending its time and money,” Fincher said. “That might be for the better eventually, but it will be uncomfortable between now and then.”
Fincher, like every other Christian college president interviewed for this article, is wrestling with long-term financial uncertainty: Will thousands of churches in North America really close, as some have predicted, reducing the number of congregations that support Christian higher education? How many students will be enrolled by next semester? In five years?
Kevin Ingram shares those concerns. “If this continues much longer,” he wondered, “are the biggest financial effects still to be felt? Is the worst yet to come?”
Stan Helton believes some changes in Christian higher education are inevitable. In his opinion, “Traditional Christian higher education is unsustainable”—too staff-heavy, with too much overhead, and too expensive for students. At Alberta Bible College, which offers remote learning in six-week modules, Helton said, “I think we’re going to keep plugging away.”
LaTanya Tyson also stressed the significant influence COVID-19 is likely to have on the future of Carolina Christian College.
“We believe this will be the turning point,” Tyson said, “[As president,] I can’t simply think about the here and now. I have to think long-term. And long term, we are looking at strengthening our financial foundation so we can build on it. Every dollar we spend has to be used so we can bring in another dollar.”
Conclusion: Unexpected Blessings and Unanswered Questions
In general, Christian colleges have not experienced major financial trauma as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but the interviews for this article were conducted in September, during the early weeks of the 2020-21 academic year, when many questions were still unanswered. How will the November election affect Christian colleges and universities? Will the availability of COVID-19 treatments or a vaccine affect finances on campus?
While it’s true that “some challenges may be yet to come in the spring,” as Kevin Ingram said, Christian higher education has not yet been severely hampered by the pandemic. Financial difficulties may still lie ahead, but as David Fincher pointed out, “Churches are always going to need trained leaders. They’re going to get them from somewhere.”
Justin Horey is a writer, musician, and the founder of Livingstone Marketing. He lives in Southern California.
0 Comments