Next to buying a house, a college education is the biggest investment most Americans will make. While the actual cost of college is lower now than it was 10 years ago, most families still face the prospect of spending or borrowing a lot of money to pay for college, especially if they are considering Christian colleges or other private options.
Is that kind of education worth the tens of thousands of dollars it may cost families? Should students be willing to go into debt to make that investment? Does our faith as followers of Jesus have any bearing on how we answer such daunting questions?
First, recognize that cost and value are related—but distinct. A college can be relatively inexpensive…and not give you what you really need or want. On the other hand, a college may charge high tuition…but provide immense return on that investment.
So How Do You Measure That Value?
Higher education has significant financial benefits, and we’ll get to them below. But for Christians, let me suggest that the value of college is best understood in terms of our callings, general and specific:
GENERAL: First, college prepares students to do what’s required of all those who follow Jesus: to love their God and their neighbors (Luke 10:27). Year by year, day by day, I see Christian students learning to love God with their hearts, souls, and strength, but also with their minds. I’m a historian who regularly asks his students to relate their studies of the past to their faith in Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). But here I often think first of the sciences, which teach us to wonder at and delight in an awesome God who created on scales cosmic and microscopic—and yet it also mindful of mere mortals like us (Ps. 8:4).
Meanwhile, college teaches students to know better their neighbors near and far—others’ beliefs and values, hopes and fears, joys and concerns. Above all, we learn about the material and spiritual needs of our fellow humans, needs that God is meeting through us.
SPECIFIC: So second, a value of college is that it helps young Christians to discover who and whose they are, discerning the specific purposes for which God has called them and refining the unique gifts he has given them. Offering opportunities to explore multiple fields and activities and to encounter diverse people and cultures, colleges can make it easier for Christians to hear God calling them in directions they’d never before imagined. While this includes career preparation, it extends far beyond to faithful service, thoughtful citizenship, lifelong learning, and meaningful relationships.
That means we should approach decisions about college in light of our responsibility to be good stewards within each of those callings. A key goal is to use our resources, our time, and our abilities faithfully and prudently. It’s all so students can become who they’re meant to be—and be prepared to serve their families, churches, communities, the world, and God.
As the servants of a generous God, we know that our wealth is not our own, but a resource that’s been entrusted to our care, to use for the purposes of God’s kingdom. That means that families need to make well-considered choices about how to save and spend their money, knowing that they have to balance the need to pay for college against the need to make other kinds of payments—and to support their local church and other worthy causes. It means that students themselves face important decisions: how much to work during college, given that “college student” itself is a full-time job; and how much to borrow.
As you weigh whether a Christian college is worth it for you, it’s good to explore:
- Loans and debt. On average, undergraduates take out $20,000-$25,000 in relatively low-interest loans to pay for college. As I’ll explain below, that’s generally a good investment. But students and their parents do need to be careful here. Look up any prospective school on the College Scorecard tool provided by the U.S. Department of Education. You can see the average total debt and monthly repayment for its alumni, plus the rate at which recent graduates default on loans.
