Steering the Ship through Uncertain Waters: Empirical Analysis and the Future of Evangelical Higher Education

ABSTRACT

Leaders of evangelical Christian colleges must navigate a challenging environment shaped by public concern about college costs and educational quality, federal inclinations toward increased regulation, and lingering fallout from the Great Recession. Proceeding from the premise that empirical analysis empowers institutional actors to lead well in uncertain times, this article examines four key areas—access, affordability, student outcomes, and financial sustainability—using publicly available data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Results for the evangelical segment and the wider private nondoctoral sector of American higher education are compared, and areas of relative strength and weakness are considered. To facilitate benchmarking by institutional research professionals, the article's appendix presents national longitudinal norms for both the evangelical segment and the private nondoctoral sector.

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Corrigendum

Notes

¹ Multiple measures exist for many of the indicators examined in this study. Where possible, widely accepted measures have been selected to align our results with previous analyses of and current discourses on smaller private college performance in the areas of access, affordability, student outcomes, and financial sustainability. For example, formulas used by the Council of Independent College's Key Indicators Tool (http://www.cic.edu/kit)—an annual national benchmarking report now in its 11th edition—have been  selected to measure the following four indicators: Average Institutional Grant per Student (CIC KIT Indicator #12), Net Tuition per Student FTE Enrollment (CIC KIT Indictor #15), Discount Rate (CIC KIT Indicator #16), and Tuition Dependency (CIC KIT Indicator #17).

² Submission of data for the variables used in this measure was voluntary rather than required in fall 2009, resulting in missing data for most of the institutions examined by this analysis. Consequently, only the results for fall 2010 to fall 2013 are presented.

³ Adapted from Morton C. Blackwell's Laws of the Public Policy Process, #18.

⁴ All measures provide certain affordances and limitations. The endowment-to-operating budget ratio is an easily calculated metric for comparison across sectors, but it is not intended to provide an in-depth assessment of an institution's financial health. For a more precise and comprehensive measure, see the Composite Financial Index (CFI), which is detailed in Tahey, P., Salluzzo, R. E., Prager, F. J., Mezzina, L., & Cowen, C. J. (2010). Strategic financial analysis for higher education: Identifying, measuring & reporting financial risks (7th ed.). KPMG, Prager, Sealy & Co., LLC, and Attain. For an example of sector-level benchmarking using the CFI, see the Council of Independent Colleges' Financial Indicators Tool at http://www.cic.edu/fit