Following the recent trustee meeting, The Gatekeeper (GK) staff spoke with NOBTS Provost Steve Lemke about the newly-approved fee schedule for next year. The conversation is presented below in a Question and Answer format.
    

GK: What are tuition costs for the 2008-2009 school year?

Lemke: The trustees approved moderate increases. On campus we are doing a couple of new things. One is that there is going to be a different rate for the first nine hours ($145 per credit hour*). The hours will be discounted if you take more than nine hours ($135). [The discount applies only to Southern Baptist students on the main campus.]
     

Some students have dealt with past increases in tuition by taking fewer credit hours per semester. What this will do is make it more affordable to take more hours. It is providing a discount of our students who are truly full-time students – those taking 12-15 hours per semester.
    

The second difference is that we have merged the “Other Baptists” and “Non-Baptist” categories. They are still paying significantly more than the Southern Baptist students, but it is not doubled like it used to be.
    

GK: What are the key factors in determining tuition fees? Why are fees going up?

Lemke: The Southern Baptist Convention, through the Cooperative Program, funds different types of students in three different ways.
     

1.   On-campus, master’s-level SBC students receive full Cooperative Program funding (the SBC funds these students at the highest rate. However, this funding does not cover all the seminary’s training costs.).

2.   Undergraduate, extension center, ProDoc and ReDoc SBC students receive partial Cooperative Program funding.

3.   Internet and non-SBC students receive no Cooperative Program funding.
    

The fees must be figured in light of the funding provided by the Cooperative Program. With that said, for every dollar of tuition we get from all the categories of students, we get two dollars from the SBC. What students pay is a relatively small percent of the actual tuition costs.
    

We held tuition stable at the $135 per hour rate as we moved past the Katrina event knowing that students were just struggling to make ends meet. Most of the other SBC seminaries have gotten considerablely beyond us in cost per credit hour. There is an agreement among the six seminaries that we try to stay within a fairly narrow range for tuition.
     
We are way behind several others. (One sister seminary will be charging $173 per credit hour next year for main campus SBC master’s students. One charged $165 per credit hour and another charged $173 during the current school year. Outside the SBC, costs go up considerable. Dallas Theological Seminary charges range from $360-$460 per credit hour based on the number of hours taken. Reformed Theological Seminary charges $345 per credit hour.)
    

Even with all these distinctions of how the Cooperative Program funds different types of students, SBC seminaries are able to hold down student costs much more than the typical accredited theological seminary. All of the SBC seminary leaders are concerned about the increasing burden of tuition that students have to pay.
    

GK: What are the internet course fees for next year and why are Internet courses typically so much more expensive than traditional courses?

Lemke: The tuition is moving from $215 per credit hour to $250 per credit hour (New Orleans Seminary’s per hour tuition for Internet course remains relatively low compared to what other seminary are charging.). Internet courses are higher because there is no Cooperative Program support for online courses and higher costs are involved in developing Internet courses. The class size for an Internet course is much smaller than a traditional course.
    

GK: Why are extension center courses more than main campus courses?

Lemke: Again, these students only receive partial funding from the SBC. There are also additional costs – the library, faculty, travel costs – that we don’t have on campus.
   

GK: Why does tuition increase for fifth-year students in the Ph.D. program?

Lemke: The SBC only pays for the first four years of training in the Ph.D. program.
    

GK: Will there be increases in rent for next year?

Lemke: Yes, the increases average about 3 percent. (Lemke noted that even with the increase, the student rent payments alone do not pay for the notes on the newer buildings).
   

We want to keep rent affordable so that our students and staff can have convenient on-campus housing.
  

GK: Why are on-campus students discouraged from taking Internet courses? This seems to be a growing post-Katrina issue.
   

Lemke: First of all, on-campus students have greater access to the courses they need. These courses are routinely offered, many of them multiple times. It is not normally an issue of students being able to get the courses. Secondly, the seminary receives no SBC funding at all for Internet courses, whereas the SBC provides full funding for master’s-level on-campus students. In order to keep the regular tuition affordable for everyone we have to limit who takes the Internet courses.
  

We also think one of the great advantages of being on campus is the personal interaction with our world-class faculty. The internet courses are designed to provide theological education to those who don’t have ready access to it through the main campus or an extension. They are not designed to be taken instead of a traditional course that is readily available.
   

GK: Dr. Lemke said that when many of the current faculty members went to seminary, the total cost per semester was around $175. Now the per-hour cost is creeping closer to that number. While the Cooperative Program giving has increased in dollar amount, this giving has not kept pace with inflation over the years. These facts provide ample motivation for the next generation of church leaders to promote and support increased giving to the Cooperative Program, Lemke said.
   

GK: The Gatekeeper spoke briefly with Dr. Chuck Kelley about seminary costs as well. He noted that the seminary family should be aware of the ways NOBTS worked to keep costs down for students. The national average cost per student at all seminaries in North American is more than $30,000 per student. The average cost per student at an SBC seminary is approximately $13,000 per student. The average cost per full-time student at NOBTS is approximately $9,000.
   

“Our seminary is committed to do all that we can do to keep cost reasonable for every God called man or woman wanting to serve the Lord in vocational or volunteer ministry,” Kelley said.

    
* Represents rates for Southern Baptist master’s level students.

      

Undergraduate, SBC, additional hours   $140

Undergraduate, Non-SBC                    $200

Master’s, SBC, first nine hours              $145

Master’s, SBC, additional hours            $135

Master’s, Non-SBC                             $195
   

Undergraduate, Non-SBC         $235

Master’s, SBC                          $170

Master’s, Non-SBC                  $230
    

Non-SBC        $245
   

Internet

All students       $250