The College Crossroads

If higher education enrollment is headed for a cliff, what will happen to Christian colleges?

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In the post-World War II economy, higher education has become one of the most powerful, desired and politicized elements of modern life. But it may be facing a severe existential threat.

Photo by MD Duran / Unsplash / Creative Commons

In 1940, only 5.5% of the U.S. male population had college degrees. With the G.I. Bill offering educational opportunities for returning World War II veterans, college education opened as a middle-class opportunity for advancement.

By 2022, 37.7% of the adult population held college degrees, and it remains a popular sentiment that higher education is a path to prosperity.

In the current market, the changing global economy prefers highly educated minds, with 72% of jobs expected to require a bachelor’s degree by 2031. Women greatly outperform men in earning college degrees, with 58.5% of all degrees going to women.

Unfortunately, higher education’s demand has created problems.

It has created a student loan debt crisis, with students owing $1.78 trillion in the U.S. as of March 2025. And one recent study found more than half of college graduates are overeducated for the jobs they actually do.

As a result, anti-college sentiment has been slowly growing. Many employers and activists have pushed back against the necessity for higher education, notably tech companies like Google and Apple removing education standards for some jobs. Sadly, this isn’t the most serious issue facing higher ed.

Why are graduates avoiding college?

Much has been said in recent years about an expected “demographic cliff” facing higher education. For example, the number of high school graduates is predicted to drop 13% between 2026 and 2041.

Across the board, college education is becoming a lower priority, with the percentage of high school students seeking higher education dropping each year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found the number of graduates enrolling in college dropped from 62% in October 2022 to 61.4% a year later, in October 2023.

These problems are multivalent and draw upon many factors and different reasonings, from conservative parents discouraging college degrees due to fears of indoctrination, to high tuition, low public trust in educational institutions, and pandemic-related issues, to declining birth rates resulting in fewer children being born in the coming generations who can be educated.

This lowering demand is creating stark realities. The Chronicle of Higher Education notes the effects of this change will not be even across the U.S. Regions like the South, where large portions of the country are migrating, will see higher rates of high school graduates. But “small, rural, regional and two-year colleges will struggle disproportionately. Some will have to reduce their academic operations or close their doors.”

Christian schools stare down the cliff

The year 2026 is important because it marks 18 years since the 2008 financial crash, with the first generation of young people born since it began graduating from high school. While enrollment suffered immediately after the crash, the full long-term effects of the financial meltdown on fertility and public trust have yet to be felt.

Those effects will be felt on Christian and secular schools alike, with overall college closures expected to spike by 8.1% in the next five years. However, the cultural decline in Christianity poses greater risks to enrollment in Christian schools, with 45% of Gen Z identifying as religiously unaffiliated. This will place pressure on Christian schools and universities that specifically focus on Christian values in education.

As North Greenville University Provost Hunter Baker says, Christian schools already are feeling the pinch: “The latest to close was Eastern Nazarene University in Quincy, Mass. Just before that news hit, Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Mich., announced it was shutting down majors in the humanities. Institutions on more solid footing have nevertheless engaged in retirement buyouts and other reductions of the workforce.

“Intuitively, Christian institutions should be less susceptible to a diminished number of young people because conservative Christian families are likely more fruitful than the population at large,” Baker continues. “Nevertheless, virtually everyone in the Christian sector is eyeing the cliff and is aware that larger universities may work hard to ensure they suffer no declines, which could have effects on smaller institutions. It is also the case that community colleges are operating with free or nearly free tuition in many states, which exerts a magnetic pull away from four-year institutions for the first two years.”

Smaller vs. larger institutions

Naturally, the data aren’t entirely negative. A recent study found Christian higher education enrollment grew 1.4% in the year leading up to the fall 2023 school year, with McMurry University, Kuyper College, Warner Pacific University and Simmons College of Kentucky, respectively, seeing annual growth between 106% and 64%.

This suggests some hope for larger Christian institutions, while smaller ones feel greater heat.

“The reason for the eight announced CHE institutional closures this past year has to do with the Walmartization effect on CHE,” according to Baylor University Professor Perry L. Glanzer. “In other words, economies of scale favor larger institutions. For example, although those eight closing institutions had an overall enrollment decline of -4,676 between fall 2022 and fall 2023, each of the two largest Christian institutions grew more than that total enrollment decline last year: Grand Canyon University (+5,747) and Liberty University (+6,359) You may not like Walmartization, but it is here to stay.”

However, larger institutions are still feeling the pinch. MinistryWatch reports issues plaguing major Christian schools, including Wheaton College, The King’s College, Trinity International University, Alliance University, Bob Jones University, and Cornerstone University, with many already being forced into mass layoffs, layoffs of tenured staff, budget cuts, academic restructuring and downsizing.

Planning ahead for the future

Regardless of severity, the demographic cliff will affect Christian schools and universities. Schools already are evaluating how they will go about recruiting in the coming decades, with a greater focus on adult students and changing demographics shifting the focus of who colleges should be seeking to stabilize their student bodies.

These problems have been well-documented and well-expected for the better part of a decade. As Wheaton College Chief Enrollment Management Officer Silvio E. Vazquez acknowledged in a pre-pandemic article, the “looming” crisis before Christian schools can be addressed by schools through diligent efforts to meet the needs of a new generation of students.

“The data [are] clear that we have a great opportunity to continue our mission by equipping students from diverse backgrounds, and that we need to increase our application pool from regions outside of the Midwest,” he said. “Enrolling an ethnically diverse class is not solely an admissions function, however. It takes a community committed to attracting, enrolling and graduating first-generation and underrepresented populations — a community that understands the unique challenges these students face. In community, we seek to live out Revelation 7:9, which exemplifies the rich mosaic that is God’s kingdom, where tribes of many tongues and nations gather to worship the Lamb on his throne.”

This article was originally published by Baptist News Global. It is reprinted with permission.

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