True or false? Alabama Baptists support three colleges/universities through their missions gifts to the Cooperative Program (CP).
Most would answer “True.” Judson College in Marion has been associated with the Alabama Baptist State Convention since its founding in 1838. So has Samford University in Birmingham (originally Howard College) since its founding in 1841. The University of Mobile (UMobile) came along much later, 1961, at the behest of Alabama Baptists and has been a cooperating entity ever since.
Each year these three schools receive missions funds from the state convention CP budget to help underwrite their respective ministries. Therefore, the answer of only three is true, right? Wrong.
Alabama Baptists also provide financial support through CP to six other colleges operated by the six Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)-related seminaries. Altogether, Alabama Baptists support nine different institutions providing baccalaureate (college) level education.
That fact becomes important when some voices advocate reducing CP support for the three schools historically connected to Alabama Baptists in order to increase CP support for the college programs of the six seminaries.
Originally, Southern Baptists reached an understanding that state conventions would provide college level education and the national SBC would provide seminary (graduate) education for those called to vocational ministry.
Denominational struggles
That agreement began to break down when Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., formed Boyce Bible College in 1974. Then in 1988, Samford started Beeson Divinity School and began providing seminary education for ministers of several denominations. However, neither Boyce nor Beeson were included in the complicated formulas used by Alabama Baptists and Southern Baptists to determine CP support.
Some years later in the midst of denominational struggles, the seminary presidents led Southern Baptists to assign baccalaureate level education to the seminaries and to include the work in the CP formula. Today all six seminaries have thriving college level programs which make up between 25–30 percent of all credit hours earned at the various institutions.
Little attention was paid to the increased competition with state convention-related Baptist colleges or the impact the decision would have on the seminaries themselves when the decision was first made.
It did not take long for that to change. In 2008 the SBC Funding Study Committee reported “the convention is funding the equivalent of a seventh seminary exclusively for pre-baccalaureate and baccalaureate programs” (2008 SBC Annual, Page 149). The report continued “the potential exists for the growth of pre-baccalaureate and baccalaureate hours to cause harm to the optimal and sustainable ratio of graduate degree production by our seminaries.”
CP support
Partly because of that report, the Great Commission Task Force Report adopted by messengers attending the 2010 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., called on the seminaries to “give primary attention to master’s and doctoral level programs.” However, little has changed in that regard and pressure has increased in Alabama and elsewhere to reduce CP support for state-sponsored colleges and give more CP dollars to seminaries which means greater support for their college programs.
According to the 2014 SBC Annual, Page 192, CP provided $9,207 for each SBC student attending Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., for the last year of record. That was the highest amount. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, received $6,010 per SBC student; Southern Seminary, $4,704. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary received the least amount per student, $4,551, partly because of its large off-campus student population.
No difference is made between whether the student is doing graduate ministerial education or college-level work.
In Alabama for the last year of record, Judson received about $3,126 per student from CP support; UMobile, $1,622 and Samford, $930. Since Samford requested its CP allocation be reduced by about 50 percent over the next five years in order to help other Alabama Baptist ministries, the average CP support per Samford student will drop to about $450 if all other factors remain equal.
The difference in CP support for college students studying at an SBC-related school or at an Alabama Baptist-related school makes a difference in other costs experienced by students. In most of the seminary-related colleges, the cost per credit hour for Baptist students is about $225. The credit hour costs for Alabama
Baptist-related schools is about twice that.
According to the SBC Executive Committee, Alabama Baptists gave 9.28 percent of all national CP dollars for the last year of record. If that percentage is applied to the $40,895,620 CP dollars directed to the six seminaries, that means Alabama Baptists contributed $3,795,113 of that amount. When that amount is broken down between baccalaureate and graduate education, Alabama Baptists gave about $1 million to support college-level education in the six seminaries.
Break the numbers down another level and Alabama Baptists provided every student at Midwestern College about $850. For those attending Leavell College (New Orleans Seminary), Alabama Baptists provided about $420.
We join the SBC Funding Study Committee in asking if Southern Baptists would be better served if SBC funds used to support college education at the six seminaries were used to underwrite graduate ministerial education.
That question is important to the seminaries because they have to cover expanding educational ventures with limited financial resources. The question is important to state-related colleges because the historical relationship between state and national educational ministries has changed and the amount of national CP funds supporting seminary-related college education makes for an uneven playing field.
The question is important to all Baptists because tensions created by competition for CP dollars to underwrite college and seminary education makes for friction and misunderstanding, things which work against healthy partnerships in the Lord’s service.
Valuable contributions
Judson, UMobile and Samford have made valuable contributions to Baptist life across the years and they continue to do so. Alabama Baptists’ investments in these schools through CP dollars is returned with dividends not only through Bible teachings but through championing Christian values and providing an educational experience in a Christian environment.
The churches of Alabama are stronger because of the contributions of the countless graduates of these schools.
We believe Baptists need to return to the day when our educational institutions, whether state or national, worked in cooperation with one another, not in competition with one another.
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