BTSR selling campus, relocating

[Sandy]

http://www.abpnews.com/ministry/organiz ... us-by-june

Seems that the "alternative" schools formed in response to the conservative resurgence in the SBC are having issues with sustainability. The quick sale and rapid relocation of the campus is an indication of that. But looking at their enrollment and budget, I am having trouble understanding how they are going to survive much longer. A hundred students, and a heavily subsidized three million dollar a year budget? No wonder they are relocating.

What I don't understand about many of these schools, given their size, is why they don't partner with a larger church somewhere, and hold classes in educational space that sits empty five or six days a week. A nice lease agreement, helping the church take care of repairs, custodial service, and renovations, would be much less expensive than debt service on a campus, parking wouldn't be a problem, and with 100 students, any multi-family housing nearby could be contracted and secured for residential students. What might even be a better arrangement would be to locate a declining, aging CBF congregation with a building that was built to accomodate a much larger congregation, have them deed the property over to the seminary, and then lease it back from them at a very low rate. The church could still have their building, the seminary has space, and equity in the property, and the budget could handle the maintenance and renovation.

[Haruo]

My only concern would be more parochial, namely, what effect will this have on the Hymn Society, which is housed at BTSR...

Incidentally, I don't think I've mentioned this, but my first old grade school, McDonald Elementary, where I did my K-6, and which was closed a few years after I graduated due to earthquake damage, is back in business and lo and behold it's a language immersion school, all the kids are learning either Spanish or Japanese... Wish that had been the case in the 'sixties. I did have a year of French and a year of Spanish there, which I'm sure kickstarted my bent for foreign tongues.

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

[Haruo]

In a reverse move, recently moved onto the campus of ABSW; for over a decade it had shared the grounds of First Congregational, using their chapel.

And in what passed for front-page-of_the-business-section news in this part of the world, First Congregational of Bellevue, WA, so it can remain downtown in cheaper digs (which sounds a lot like what BTSR is talking about).

[Sandy]

Unless I am misreading something in the article, while BTSR did plan the sale of its campus, and relocation, they more or less sped up the timetable for doing that in order to close a sale to what seems to be their most viable buyer. I'm looking at an enrollment of 100, and a total annual budget of $3.4 million, which comes out to $34,000 per student per year. That's pretty high cost, depending on how much of that students have to come up with, and with an endowment of just over $4 million, even at some pretty good interest rates these days, that wouldn't be much. I also wonder how much of what they realize from the sale of the campus will go toward indebtedness, and how much will be left to find another facility.

Questions about sustainability aren't unreasonable. BTSR is independent, except for some help from CBF and the BGAV, which doesn't seem to be a whole lot. Some of its moderate Baptist sister institutions do not have the overhead of buildings or property, since they utilize classrooms and space on an already constructed state convention supported university campus. In the paradigm shift of change that is going on in graduate education, how will they continue to compete, especially if they are struggling for funding.?

[Tim Bonney]

Schadenfreude doesn't become you Sandy.

[Dave Roberts]

[Tim Bonney]

[William Thornton]

Well,the SBC has the six seminaries which have a reliable funding stream, large donor bases, and the ability to raise tuition. I see no major change in these six, though we could easily get by with four or five. The CBF has many affiliated seminaries some of which have strong backing and some of which do not. Are we in for some realignment or consolidation here, especially in light of the reality that there is a limited pool of destination churches for grads?

Just asking. The SBC state convention schools deal somewhat with the same issues.

...not my money there so I will offer my opinion gratis...and Sandy will watch it closely to help out.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy, some years back MBTS, where I went to seminary, sold a bunch of property and I was under the impression it was a financial decision.

I think I said this above but I know of two other seminaries, Central Baptist Theological and St. Paul Seminary in Kansas City, that are both getting rid of their campuses. Neither of them came into existence do to the takeover of the SBC. It is a common trend in theological education as far as I can tell.

[TrudyU]

[Dave Roberts]

I have NC friends who report the almost deserted nature of SEBTS. I wonder how it would look without an undergraduate program that badly duplicates programs already available in at least six Baptist colleges in the state.

[Sandy]

SEBTS reports a non duplicating head count of slightly over 2,000 students, of which about 450 are in BA and AA programs, the rest in the master's programs and the ministry diploma. So if it's deserted, your friends must be observing it on holiday or break, since that's a larger enrollment than it had at any time prior to 1979.

If students are choosing to earn their BA at Southeastern, instead of at one of the other six Baptist colleges in the state, there must be a reason for it. The BA programs at the SBC seminaries are basically Bible college programs, limited in scope. Students have a choice. There must be something that draws those 450 students to Southeastern instead of to one of the other Baptist colleges in the same state. Cost, perhaps is a factor, quality of the instruction, number of course offerings, or that a seminary with a Bible college program would simply have more to offer in that department than a small college would have.

[Dave Roberts]

[Sandy]

I don't think there's a comparison that can be drawn between SEBTS and BTSR. SEBTS has over 2,000 students, occupies a debt-free campus, and its students whose ministry calling is endorsed by a cooperating church in the denomination that owns it receive about two thirds of their cost of attending in the form of a scholarship provided by the Cooperative Program. It also has a sizeable endowment that provides additional financial assistance, several state conventions that provide their students with scholarship money, and a lot of other sources so that students wind up paying very little, or owing very little, upon graduation. BTSR has a hundred students, down 50% from its peak just a few years ago, and the scholarship provision from its partnership with CBF is quite small compared to the cost of attending. Its own budget statement shows that the majority of its income comes from tuition and fees paid by students. The schools are in two different categories. SEBTS has the means of meeting student needs with off campus study centers, and I'm guessing that it won't be long before the SBC schools have a well developed, on-line cyber program as well. Those are some options BTSR might look into developing, to expand its "niche."

Being the size that it is, I would think that there would be a church in the general area that would be able to enter into some kind of a building use partnership with the seminary to provide classroom and office space in a shared arrangement that would be financially beneficial to both groups. SWBTS houses its Houston campus in a church facility it purchased from a church that had a lot of educational space it wasn't using, due to declining attendance. The purchase of the property and required renovation is being paid for by the lease they extended back to the church which still uses the chapel and some of the classroom space. Since it already has an established faculty, and students, it would make a nice graduate school of theology for some moderate leaning Baptist university that currently doesn't have one. That would solve the issue of maintaining a campus and residential property.

The issue of Bible colleges, and the extent of their curriculum is probably material for another thread. Obviously, they are filling a need that wasn't being addressed by the state convention operated colleges, since those that are affiliated with the SBC seminaries seem to be quite popular choices.