Is It Time To Write the Eulogy?
A large number of the mainline seminaries are selling their buildings and property, cutting faculty, and eliminating degree programs. Those that are not, are competing for a shrinking pool of prospective students and rely on scholarships and lower academic standards to attract the students that they do have...
Denominations have left seminarians to pay for their educations, saddling them with debt that they cannot comfortably repay because beginning salaries for clergy are often below the poverty level. And, at the same time, they have offered alternative routes to ordination bypassing seminary entirely, leaving those who do go to wonder why they worked so hard to accomplish the same goal. What we will never know is how many prospective clergy are lost because they conclude that if the ministry is something you can do without preparation it isn't really worthy of their attention....
In some cases a seminarian can wait five to seven years before learning if she will be ordained, and in the meantime he is forced to run a gauntlet of committees and requirements that is more akin to hazing for membership in a fraternity, than it is serious preparation for ministry.
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Seminary professor Frederick Schmidt says that many M. Div. programs are "bloated," no doubt so seminaries could rake in more federal student loan dollars per degree. He says that the accrediting agency only requires 72 credit hours for a M. Div., but is agasp that some seminaries require as much as 106 credit hours. He'd probably have seizures if he heard how many credit hours the LCMS seminaries get away with requiring, namely 137 and 139 (see links below). You'd have to look at the US defense department to find "cost overruns" as big as the cost overrun for getting a LCMS M. Div. For that many credit hours, you'd think a guy could walk away with a M. Div and a D. Min, or at least be well on his way toward receiving a Doctor of Theology.
So if 106 credit hours is "bloated and expensive," and the most expensive Methodist seminary out of their dozen or so seminaries is the 29th most expensive seminary in N America, then what adjectives are left to describe the LCMS's M. Div. programs, which are 9th and 11th most expensive programs in N America, and require nearly twice as many credit hours to graduate than is required by ATS!:
Seminary costs compared:
http://www.scribd.com/bruce_church
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Concordia St. Louis M. Div.
http://www.csl.edu/admissions/academics/mdiv/curriculum/
Credit Hours/Area
27 Exegetical Theology
26 Systematic Theology
18 Historical Theology
30 Practical Theology
18 Free Electives
18 Vicarage
137 Total
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Concordia Ft. Wayne M. Div.
http://www.ctsfw.edu/Page.aspx?pid=392
Credit Hours/Area
40 Exegetical Theology
18 Historical Theology
43 Pastoral Ministry and Missions
29 Systematic Theology
3 Field Education and Vicarage
6 Electives
139 Total
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http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Is-It-Time-to-Write-the-Eulogy-Frederick-Schmidt-03-21-2011?offset=1&max=1
In spite of the fact that there is room for so many extras, the degree itself is bloated and expensive. The Association of Theological Schools require at least 72 hours of course work, but some seminaries require as much as 106 hours; and the inside joke among most seminarians is that they will be fortunate to crowd three years into four . . . or five.
Flow of Funds to Seminaries
http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2011/02/flow-of-funds-to-seminaries.html
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