10 Benefits to Attending a Christian College
Attending a Christian college is a terrific education option available to young people of faith. These universities offer the kind of benefits that a secular college simply cannot. Your choice to attend a Christian university will prepare you for the world while keeping your faith, ideals, and beliefs intact.
For those planning to join the church on a more administrative or career-based level, a Christian university makes perfect sense. For those seeking education to further a different type of career goal, a Christian college is still an attractive solution.
When you choose a Christian university, you automatically narrow your choices down. With a narrower field to choose from, you can make a better, more informed decision. Nevertheless, there are many, many reasons you should attend a Christian college.
Christian Universities Offer Value
The word “value” can mean many things. When it comes to a Christian university, there are various values involved.
Educational Values
Christian universities are not inferior to other colleges. They tend to have the same caliber of educational merit. This goes for the campuses, to the professors, to the administrations. You will not receive an inadequate education at a Christian university, so you should not fear choosing such a college to further your academic goals. They have the accreditation, and they offer many career options.
Monetary Values
Many Christian universities simply do not cost as much as their secular counterparts. It is not because they lack anything the other schools have; it is because they apply their values to their admission rates. They want you to attend; they do not want to bar your progress.
It is true there are some higher priced Christian colleges as well, but this is not the norm. For many of the Christian universities with a higher tuition cost, the price is completely justified. Remember that Christian colleges run the gamut from small to large. Just like their secular counterparts, this leads to price fluctuations.
Christian Values
Fostering spirituality and your relationship to God is a good enough reason to attend a faith-based university. Stories often come out of secular colleges that can sometimes frighten people. It makes them seem like a place where you can lose yourself and your core beliefs. While this is not exactly true, it is a cause for concern.
A Christian college makes that particular fear a non-issue. You will find yourself around people of the same faith with the same values. This will encompass everyone around your, from your fellow students to your professors. These people know where their faith is leading them, and can talk to you about your own.
Christian Universities Can Expand Your Worldview
Higher education has always represented a means of expanding one’s worldview. It puts you in a place consisting of different people from different lifestyles. It teaches you broader perspectives and allows you to see how the world works through the magnifying lens of your chosen major. At a Christian university, all these things happen as well.
However, instead of a purely secular view, you will gain a better understanding of how the world works through a more fundamental spiritual view. You can make connections but make them without having to sacrifice your beliefs to them.
Christian Colleges Allow You to Mature & Learn with Like-Minded People
A Christian university offers you the ability to learn with others that have strong beliefs. Some people assume that this creates a kind of bubble where people do not get to see what is really going on in the world. However, remember this; the Christian faith is a rainbow of belief.
You will find challenges and things to dwell on. You will find others with a different view from your own. You will also find those that will help you develop your own beliefs. This will help you and guide you without you having to give up any of your closely held beliefs.
On the other hand, thank of it this way. You and the other students will all share the core beliefs. You will not have to explain the very basics of your spiritual connection to God. That is because you will be around like-minded people. You go in already having a solid, immovable connection to those around you.
Christian Institutions Provide Guidance
Since you will be among those that share your beliefs, you will have a lot of guidance available to you. You can learn how to keep your life God-based and firm with those that have already gone through the challenges associated with such an attempt.
These people will work to guide you but also serve as your role models. You will be among those that also listen to what’s God trying to tell them. You will have spiritual guidance along with educational guidance. No other type of college can offer that one thing.
Christian Colleges Encourage the Inclusion of Christ in Your Professional Outlook
For those that want to go on to a business or career in a world of secularism, it can seem like a cold, faithless place. A Christian college can help guide you towards keeping Christ first in your future endeavors. Even if you find yourself in a field dominated by money or politics, you will have the spiritual tools to keep yourself centered and focused on what is most important.
Christian Universities have Activities that Don’t Dishonor Christ
You and your fellow students can take part in any number of enjoyable activities. Christian colleges often host or sponsor fun social activities. Except here, these activities will represent wholesome, faith-based outings. You can still enjoy nights out, concerts, productions, dances and everything else. You can enjoy things knowing that your faculty and fellow students will never attempt to offer you anything that would dishonor your faith.
Christian Universities Foster a Caring Christian Community
Many people never fully understand just how huge the Christian community really is. When talking about being around like-minded people, the statement goes far beyond just the campus. A Christian college can open you up to the larger global Christian community.
These universities also help you to grow and create relationships in that community. This can become an important aspect in growing your future career. If you are seeking a life of ministry, then it also helps you to know how things happen outside of your own smaller community.
Christian Universities Add Spiritual Discipline to Education
Spiritual discipline is hard to foster when the school lacks many people of faith. For some, this can represent a personal call to strengthen their faith. For some others, it can represent a slippery slope towards putting their faith to the side for more earthly concerns.
A Christian university will never let you lose focus of who you are, or cause you to sever your relationship to God. They will help you not just keep your faith, but strengthen it by applying it to a larger worldview.
Christian Colleges Offer Stability
You can count on a traditional, Christian-based education. You do not have to worry about collegiate trends and fads altering the experience. This is important because it means you will get the education you are expecting.
You will not get new, experimental forms of teaching. You will not get a bunch of secular ideas creeping into your lectures. Your professors will not start suddenly giving you information without a good spiritual backing to the information. Christian colleges are stable. The underlying faith helps to keep these institutions firmly grounded.
Christian Colleges Offer Options
Just like any college search, you need to weigh the things you are looking for. You need to make sure the Christian college offers you the academics you need and the undergraduate work that is relevant to what you want to do.
Even though they offer benefits associated with faith-based education, you still need to look for the option that feels most comfortable. Just remember, there are options when it comes to Christian colleges. There are a lot of them, so it is up to you to find the one that is right for you and your faith.
Many Christians find their significant other during Christian Higher Education
It’s probably common sense that you’re more likely to meet a Christian spouse at a Christian college, but let’s look at the studies. The information collected in recent studies suggests that larger schools may be better at facilitating a match made in heaven (as there are more matches to be made) and that similar political leanings mildly correlate to the likelihood that two alumni will marry. All in all, there may not be any big surprises here—people tend to get together when they have a few things in common, whether personal or environmental— if they are a Christian, but at the very least, these results affirm the conventional wisdom that you ought to make the most of your college years. Just don’t tell your parents they were right. About 28 percent of married college-graduates attended the same college,” though here geography is not so much a factor—instead it’s a matter of gender ratio and religious affiliation. About 60 percent of all Brigham Young University alumni were married to fellow alumni, for example, and women were most likely to marry a classmate if they attended Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where men make up a whopping 88 percent of the population.