Scholarships and financial aid play a role in seminary choice

AMBS

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This fall Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind., has selected two students to receive the Church Leadership Award, Caitlin Desjardins and Caleb Yoder.

Both intend to pursue the Master of Divinity degree, and in this program their awards will cover tuition for up to three years of full-time study.

AMBS offers these full-tuition scholarships to several incoming students each year, based on their demonstrated gifts for ministry. In addition, AMBS financial aid provides assistance to all qualified students based on need.

Students and faculty in front of the chapel on opening day, Sept. 8, at AMBS. Photo by Mary E. Klassen.

Desjardins is a member of Madison (Wisc.) Mennonite Church where she has participated in a variety of ministries. She also has been involved in youth ministry at summer camps and is a harpist, pianist and violinist. She completed undergraduate studies at Wheaton (Ill.) College in 2009.

Yoder, from Wellman, Iowa, has already tested ministry through the Ministry Inquiry Program in his home congregation of West Union Mennonite Church. After graduating from Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, Va., he served in Honduras with Mennonite Central Committee for three years. Yoder also has received a 2010 Congregational Fellowship from the Fund for Theological Education based in Atlanta, Ga., after being nominated by his pastor, David W. Boshart.

Bob Rosa, director of enrollment and student services, believes that financial aid and especially these merit scholarships are becoming a significant factor as people choose whether to pursue seminary study and which seminary to attend.

"This year we are aware of several Mennonite students we hoped would come to AMBS who were offered full-ride scholarships at larger seminaries and chose to study at those schools," Rosa said.

AMBS students report, in surveys done in the last three years, that denominational affiliation, theological stance and quality of the faculty are the most important factors that influenced their choice of where to study. However, scholarships and financial aid are emerging as a factor that can outweigh all the others, especially when seminaries are competing for a shrinking number of potential students.

Statistics from one of AMBS's accrediting agencies, the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, show a dramatic decline in the overall number of seminary students. In the last ten years, enrollment in the seminaries that are part of the association dropped from 90,000 to 74,000. 

Jody Walker, director of financial aid at AMBS, observes that some potential students she is in contact with are not willing to take out loans to fund their seminary study. This may be wise, given the uncertainty of paying back those loans, she acknowledges, but she also sees the impact this has on enrollment. Some who are admitted to AMBS are choosing not to come or are delaying their studies, and some are going to schools of other denominations if they are offered more aid, she notes.

"The support from people across the church who contribute to scholarships like the ones Caitlin and Caleb have received has a very real impact on students at seminary now," Rosa said. "In the long view, it also will have an impact on the church as these students become pastors and church leaders. So scholarships benefit not only the students and AMBS, but also the church as a whole."