Thirty evangelical colleges and universities saw significant enrollment growth in 2024, according to data from the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU). And many of these institutions are setting records, continuing the post-pandemic rebound seen in 2023.
Calvin University welcomed its largest incoming student group in a decade, with the number of first-year students up slightly over the previous fall. Asbury University had more than 2,000 students—the largest total enrollment in the university’s 134-year history. And Colorado Christian University, which surpassed 10,500 students, was named one of the fastest-growing universities in the country for the ninth year in a row.
At the same time, other Christian colleges are grappling with enrollment declines and budget shortfalls. Some, including Eastern Nazarene and The King’s College, have shut down. Others, including Cornerstone, Concordia, and Seattle Pacific University, have made difficult cuts.
In such an environment, making sense of higher education trends is a challenge, CCCU president David Hoag told CT. CCCU leaders are all trying to figure out the best way forward with Christ-centered strategic plans.
“These are kind of challenging times in higher ed,” he said. “We have 600,000 students at our institutions and 15,000 faculty. We want that number to keep going up, and we’re just trying to find different ways to make that happen.”
Most colleges saw large enrollment declines at the beginning of the pandemic, but many institutions saw decreases long before that too.
Overall college enrollment has declined by about 2.5 million students since 2010, a drop of nearly 15 percent in undergraduate enrollment. The number of college students in the US peaked in 2010 and has been on a downward trajectory since then.
Religious schools have fared the best, though. According to 2021 enrollment data from the Digest of Education Statistics, schools with religious affiliation saw student declines of just 3 percent in 10 years. Secular private schools, by comparison, have had the greatest declines, losing 18 percent of their student population in that same period.
And evangelical schools appear to be doing better than other religious-affiliated institutions. Colleges and universities affiliated with the Assemblies of God have seen enrollment grow by one-third. Nondenominational colleges have grown by more than a quarter. And Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran institutions saw enrollment increases of 23 percent, according to Perry L. Glanzer at Baylor University.
“With only a few exceptions, the denominational institutions that decreased the most between 2010 and 2021 were mostly Mainline Protestant institutions,” Glanzer wrote in an analysis for Christian Scholar’s Review.
Christian college and university leaders told CT that attracting students has less to do with an institution’s specific denominational affiliation and more to do with its commitment to transformational education. Students and their families are interested in institutions that can articulate clear visions, explaining how each school can shape students personally and professionally and prepare them for the future.
“This is a really great time for Christian higher ed,” said Jennifer McChord, Asbury University’s vice president of enrollment and marketing. “There are families out there in large quantities who are looking for authentic and intentional Christ-centered education.”
Asbury has benefited from intensive marketing campaigns targeting Christian high school students interested in various academic and extracurricular programs that Asbury offers. Recruiters have also focused on building partnerships with Christian high schools in the region. McChord said the school has increased focus on student retention as well.
In the United States, nearly a third of students stop attending the college where they enrolled, either because they dropped out (23%) or transferred to another school (9%). Asbury has attained retention rates up to 85 percent, nearly 20 points above the national average.
McChord said the school offers robust orientation programs for new, transfer, and international students and has also increased resources for students’ physical, mental, and spiritual health. The school puts a lot of emphasis on community for students.
“Our data is showing us that in all programs, our students are really enjoying and benefiting from the intentional community they experience at Asbury,” she said. “And they tend to come back for their next year.”
Much of the new growth in enrollment has come from nontraditional sources, Christian college and university leaders told CT.
Asbury, for example, has seen growth in all categories but particularly with dual-enrollment programs for high school students who want to earn college credit. Calvin University has welcomed an increase in international students. This year, roughly 20 percent of the incoming class was from outside the United States, school data shows.
Calvin had an incoming class in 2024 that was 15 percent larger than the incoming class in 2023, which was itself larger than the number of freshmen enrolling in 2022. The increase includes more first-generation college students, more students from Michigan, and more children of alumni.
“Our growth comes from an ongoing, integrated strategic plan of recruitment both within the enrollment division and across the university,” spokesman John Zimmerman said.
But the growth in the number of international and online students pushed the school to record enrollment.
“We definitely have had international students for decades here at Calvin, but it is part of our growth strategy overall,” Lauren Jensen, the college’s vice president for enrollment strategy, told CT. “We’ve been able to continue to lean into that and have more and more countries represented.”
While roughly four out of five evangelical colleges and universities didn’t see significant enrollment increases last year, many still say they notice enrollment numbers trending upward.
That was the case at Vanguard University, which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God. The school has seen enrollment of traditional undergraduate students increase by about 14 percent in the last decade.
President Michael Beals said generous financial aid has been an important part of recruitment. Nearly all of Vanguard’s students receive some funding, making private Christian education accessible to students who might otherwise be unable to attend, Beals said.
Last year, however, the rocky rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) resulted in significant problems for potential Vanguard students. There were a lot of glitches that caused delays, Beals said, and some students were unable to apply at all.
“This impacted our total enrollment and retention for fall 2024,” Beals said.
He’s hopeful that the problem is fixed now. The 2025–26 FAFSA officially launched on November 21 without any major problems.
“Our admissions and financial aid offices are working with students on an individual basis to resolve any issues,” Beals said.
Vanguard, like other schools, is looking at other opportunities to boost enrollment as well. The school has recently expanded its online programs, for example, which it hopes will make higher education accessible to people who need a more flexible schedule. The university is also increasing efforts to recruit Latino students in the region and has added 12 new degree programs and six new teaching credential programs over the last decade.
“Our country is currently facing a time when higher education is in flux,” Beals said. “But we believe students at every stage of their lives can benefit from a Christ-centered education.”
Christian commitments are a constant at evangelical colleges and universities. But leaders at CCCU schools acknowledge that lots of things are shifting right now. Schools try to adapt to new trends and figure out what to do with tight budgets.
Sometimes trying new things works, said McChord, at Asbury, and sometimes they don’t. Christian institutions can only do the best they can with the information they have at the time.
“We’ve done some really hard work over the last number of years to realign our academic programs as well as our campus experience to what this generation really wants and needs,” McChord said. “But the market is really, really difficult right now.”
