Note the Bruce Church post below.
One sign of Lutheran apostasy is the willingness of the Baby Boomer leaders to force future church workers into paying for their hyper-expensive education. I had almost no tuition charges, and scholarships reduced or eliminated that cost, when I earned an MDiv.
The old WELS system was fair, charging a relatively low cost for prep school, college, and seminary, refunding the entire tuition charge upon graduation. That was an incentive to stay in the program, providing a nest egg for the future shepherd and shepherdess. They eliminated the program while taking in vast sums from Marvin Schwan.
In fact, Marvin Schwan built chapels in three (3) synods while the same synods jacked up tuition for the students. Were any chapels falling down and threatening the safety of the students? No, but the leaders lusted for something magnificent to showcase their fading glory.
The Olde Synodical Conference also lavished funds on student housing, including a multi-million dollar cafeteria at Concordia St. Louis. The justification was probably recruitment, although the leaders went to those same institutions and managed to graduate without the five-star hotel treatment. Mrs. Ichabod and I had a modest student apartment where the rug seemed to be a brillo pad glued on cardboard. At Yale the couples cleaned their furniture with scouring powder - and yet we graduated.
Tuition = salaries, and salaries = tuition. The Lutheran schools have the tuition in the stratosphere so they can load up the faculty with high salaries and benefits, but low work-loads. Not enough money? Fill out your FAFSA and get these easy student loans, which will follow you all the days of your life, yea even into the valley of the shadow of bankruptcy. They will re-emerge like crocus after Chapter 7 or 13 is over.
Yale found a need to take away the student loan debt, which made their music graduates accept non-music jobs to deal with the burden. One wealthy person gave $100 million for free tuition at the Yale School of Music. Now the graduates stay in music.
Something similar could have happened with all that Schwan loot, but the Syn Conference leaders wanted to invent ways to give it to themselves. Now they have the additional burden of more buildings to support and no gain from all the brick and mortar evangelism. More importantly, they have revealed how much they glory in themselves instead of showing any compassion for the student population.
"But relax kid, you can always come back to Marvin's Little Cathedral ($8 million, New Ulm) at WELS worship conferences. Oh, I forgot. We hold the conferences at ELCA schools, which are designed with some foresight and stewardship."
