Training the next generation
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It costs £5.7 million pounds to train a fast jet RAF pilot. It costs almost £250,000 to train a doctor, a similar figure for a dentist. Financial consultants KPMG spend around £92,000 training each graduate they employ. It even costs up to £30,000 to train a guide dog for the blind.
On the other hand, a student training at WEST (Wales Evangelical School of Theology) will pay just over £15,000 for three years full-time training. Donations to the college contribute perhaps another £7,500 per student. Students at LTS (London Theological Seminary), studying on a shorter, two-year course, pay fees of just under £7,000, with gifts adding approximately £3,500.
There is an obvious question, isn’t there? How does it cost less to train a man over three years for the pastoral ministry, than it does to train a dog for a little over a year and a half? And how do you train a pastor, missionary or evangelist for a tenth of what it costs to train a doctor?
Balancing the books
I trained for the ministry at WEST, so I’ll use that college as an example in trying to answer the question. The honest answer is to say that working within such financial constraints is incredibly difficult. I asked Kevin Green, recently appointed bursar at WEST, how his first six months in the job had been. “It’s been a struggle to balance the books from day one. That’s mainly because only two-thirds of our income comes from student fees, and we rely on gifts for the rest. Much of our gift income comes from individuals giving sacrificially. Obviously what we don’t get is government grants in any form.”
The difficulties are easy to spot: IT and library facilities at WEST, whilst adequate, are not exactly world-class; although WEST’s building (another major expense), is continually improving, it needs substantial further development; whilst the majority of WEST’s expenditure goes on salaries (some £300,000 in 2007), don’t assume lecturers are driving around in Mercedes and BMWs. The average wage at the University of Reading, for example, is 98% higher than it is at WEST.
The situation in LTS is no different. A heavier reliance on visiting lecturers and a shorter course means that costs can be kept lower, but it too struggles to balance the books each year. According to their annual accounts, LTS spent less on library books last year than I personally spent on books for my own study. The picture on the income side is again similar to WEST – only two-thirds of the costs are met through fees, with LTS being reliant on donors for the remainder. And in 2007 just 31% of LTS’s gift income came from churches, with less than 4% from trusts, and the remaining 65% from individuals.
The student perspective
But let’s look at things from the student’s perspective. Most students at the college will not be fresh from school, but will be men in their twenties and thirties. Most will have already studied at university, and probably still have the debt to prove it. Many will have young families. Several of them will want to study with their wives if that is at all possible.
Of course, when men start a full-time training programme they will need to stop work. If the government statistics are to be believed, a couple with two small children need a minimum of just over £15,500 to live (that’s what they would receive in benefits if they had no income). So, assuming they can get by on the minimum, they’ll need more than £20,000 per year to pay their living expenses and their course fees. If the wife wishes to study as well, that will increase to £25,000. Multiply that by three years, and you’ll find that a student with a family will need to find between £60,000 and £75,000 to complete his studies.
Of course, not all students are married with children. Using the same government figures, a single man would need to find around £13,500 per year (including fees), or £40,000 over the three-year course. That doesn’t include any books, a computer, or other materials.
So where is this money going to come from? Where would you find between £40,000 and £75,000 if you felt a call to the ministry or mission field?
Articles in this series:
- Training the next generation <-- This article
- Funding theological training: the options
- Who is responsible for training our ministers?
- A plea for strategic, planned investment in theological training
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I don’t mean to be confrontational, but…
Comparing the comparatively greater costs of training doctors and dentists and guide dogs for the blind is offset by the fact that each of these contributes something tangible to society. The same cannot be said of theologians. Again, that sounds confrontational, but really think about it: theology’s founding premise is that god exists in the first place to learn about. This is an unfounded assumption. And there is nothing that theology has contributed to the understanding of how the world works, nor does it compare in any real terms to the good doctors do for the sick (or guide dogs for the blind). So in balancing the costs of one and the other, the value of the product ought to be considered as a crucial factor.
In a functional world, we don’t need song birds. Rather the Vulture has proven function. We need doctors and dentists but don’t need artists in a functional world.
Aside from the eternal consequences, the study of theology is important for the moral and ethical compass that it provides society.
Hi Wayne,
I disagree with you utterly. I don’t find that theology is anything as productive as is art and, just to make myself clear: I’m not arguing for an exclusively function-oriented society. I’m arguing against the unfounded premise on which all of theology is based.
As for your remark about the requirement for theology to provide a moral and ethical compass: that’s just not true. Moral philosophy and Ethics have existed for millenia, including outside of any suppositions about the existence of God. I would also point out that theism is absolutely not required for anyone to be a moral person or to deliberate on morality. There is no moral action that a theist is able to perform than an atheist is not. In any case, theology is not the source of our understanding about what is good and what isn’t.
The comments surprise me. Even for the common pragmatist the greatest benefit of theology is in the field of ethics.
In the US we have a problem with escalating costs. When I was attending a Christian college in the 70s it was poassible to work your way through. But these days it is less and less possible because of the wage:tuition ratio.
Too often we view education as separate from church life. Instead our local churches should recognize, call out, and train young people. The colleges would also do well to partner more closely with churches.
Great series. Thanks.
Hi Collin,
You wrote:
“Even for the common pragmatist the greatest benefit of theology is in the field of ethics.”
Note, however that theology’s greatest contribution being in ethics doesn’t mean it’s a great contribution per se. It’s just that theology might not have anything else. It is true that in the past society was generally oriented around religion more (particularly in Europe) and considerations regarding the divine drove discussion about what is right and wrong. Such stuff is the heritage modern ethics’ heritage, in terms of the intellectual tradition anyway. But morality does not come from God (this has been understood since Plato). In fact, there is a growing interest in discovering the evolutionary roots of our ethics. Children, for instance, have an innate sense of right and wrong for the most part; they are not a blank slate in ethics terms. Many values (e.g. prohibition of murder) extend across all sorts of societies, even ones who’ve never heard of the Christian God. Finally, pick up a modern philosophy book on ethics of any kind and see how relevant religion is to modern discussion therein. For the most part it isn’t at all. You can argue this is because of the terrible secularisation of academia since the Dark Ages, but really the old chestnut has never gone away: there is no proof (or even good, reliable evidence) for God and it is plainly obvious that unfounded beliefs oughtn’t provide the basis of how we conduct ourselves. By far the majority of modern discussion in ethics where religion is mentioned is by way of criticism of its stance against modern progress, e.g. stem-cell research to cure devastating diseases, or the Catholic Church’s opposition to contraception in Africa despite the AIDS pandemic there. That religion (let alone theology) provides society with a valuable contribution to ethics these days is outdated in all but name and it is the last refuge of believers who haven’t found very good answers to their detractors.
I have attended theology courses at university and read not a few academic theology papers and books. In my estimation 90-95% of academic theology is a waste of time, because it harks back to medieval premises and is in the service of those who would rely on ancient scripture more than common sense. A large portion of theologians are obscurantists, for the very reason that they don’t want their work to be accessible and easy to read: it would be easy to discover how flawed and pointless so much of it is. By contrast, other fields of knowledge these days tend to reach out to each other: in the sciences, for instance, chemists, biologists and physicists are talking more and more to the psychologists, economists, mathematicians and engineers in evermore concerted attempts to open up new fields of knowledge, perspectives and routes to progress. Theology sits isolated, unable to interact or contribute and finds solace in outdated remarks about how necessary it is to advance ethics.
Luke,
Getting the facts straight, SCR is not an ethical problem. ESCR is.
I’m curious which of the reformed theologians you’ve read. Perhaps you’ve compared their ethical foundations with, perhaps, Peter Singer and might share with us how progressive utilitarianism systems somehow have a greater value to humanity, or perhaps more respect for life and dignity.
If you read theology and see it as isolated and unable to interact with the world around, you have read the wrong ones. To call the majority of them obscurantists would seem prejudicial. Try the Princeton community, esp. Kuyper and his theological offspring (VanTil, Schaeffer) for a positive affect on the world.
On the other hand, what has the secular theologian and philosopher given us? The 19th c. post-enlightenment crowd is nothing to be proud of.
http://evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-much-deal-from-liberal-world.html
Although I count myself a believer I find I am more sympathetic to the views of ‘lukethechemist’ than Collin. ‘..what has (sic) the secular theologian and philosopher given us? The 19th c. post-enlightenment crowd’ tells us rather a lot! It reminds me of Tom Lehrer’s ‘Mozart, or one of that crowd’ Clearly you think they have given nothing to you!
Try this.
Can you think of any moral act which could be performed by a theist but not by an atheist?
Now, can you think of an immoral act which could be performed by a theist but not by an atheist? ‘Course you can!
You introduce the term ‘utilitarianism’. Surely you aren’t daft enough to think it is the only alterative? If you are I suggest you read Iris Murdoch’s ‘Sovereignty of Good’ (One of the post-enlightenment crowd; as indeed we all are if you think about it!)
Anyway, take the test and let me know what you think.