Category: Seminaries

I looked at the Association for Theological School data and made a simple chart of the largest seminaries by enrollment Head Count. The Excel document is linked to below. 

 

2012 Most enrollment total : Head Count and Full Time Equivalent (Ordered by Head Count)
	Total Enrollment
Rank	School	2012 HC	2012 FTE
1	Fuller Theological Seminary	3579	1708
2	Southern Baptist Theological Seminary	2561	1424
3	Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary	2338	1241
4	Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary	2033	1069
5	Dallas Theological Seminary	1962	1057
6	Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary	1907	1447
7	Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary	1683	667
8	New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary	1596	1290
9	Asbury Theological Seminary	1488	755
10	Trinity Evangelical Divinity School	1229	848
11	Talbot School of Theology	1224	541
12	Reformed Theological Seminary	1096	561
13	Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary	1025	605
14	Denver Seminary	932	479
15	Regent University School of Divinity	881	497
16	Bethel Seminary of Bethel University	861	405
17	Western Seminary	797	422
18	Alliance Theological Seminary	760	396
19	Luther Seminary	756	548
20	Ashland Theological Seminary	744	360
21	Tyndale University College & Seminary	683	339
22	Midwestern Baptist Seminary	656	337
23	Duke University Divinity School	639	588
24	Concordia Seminary (MO)	621	441
25	Westminster Theological Seminary	617	420
26	Princeton Theological Seminary	514	500
27	Candler School of Theology of Emory University	478	441
Table 2.15 Head Count and Full-Time Equivalent Enrollment by Degree Category, Fall 2012
http://www.ats.edu/Resources/PublicationsPresentations/Documents/AnnualDataTables/2012-13AnnualDataTables.pdf
Annual Data Tables/FactBooks
The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada
Collated by Andrew D. Rowell, April 2013

 

 

2012 Most enrollment total : Head Count and Full Time Equivalent (Ordered by Full Time Equivalent)
	Total Enrollment
Rank	School	2012 HC	2012 FTE
1	Fuller Theological Seminary	3579	1708
2	Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary	1907	1447
3	Southern Baptist Theological Seminary	2561	1424
4	New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary	1596	1290
5	Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary	2338	1241
6	Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary	2033	1069
7	Dallas Theological Seminary	1962	1057
8	Trinity Evangelical Divinity School	1229	848
9	Asbury Theological Seminary	1488	755
10	Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary	1683	667
11	Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary	1025	605
12	Duke University Divinity School	639	588
13	Reformed Theological Seminary	1096	561
14	Luther Seminary	756	548
15	Talbot School of Theology	1224	541
16	Princeton Theological Seminary	514	500
17	Regent University School of Divinity	881	497
18	Denver Seminary	932	479
19	Concordia Seminary (MO)	621	441
20	Candler School of Theology of Emory University	478	441
21	Western Seminary	797	422
22	Westminster Theological Seminary	617	420
23	Bethel Seminary of Bethel University	861	405
24	Alliance Theological Seminary	760	396
25	Ashland Theological Seminary	744	360
26	Tyndale University College & Seminary	683	339
27	Midwestern Baptist Seminary	656	337

 

 

Download Excel document of this chart on the Fall 2012 Most enrollment total

 

Comments: 

• There are a lot Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) schools on the list. (The denomination for each school is listed in the ATS data but I have not included it here–sorry). 
• It would be great to compare this data with earlier ATS data which you could do but I haven't taken the time to do so–sorry! However, I did do lists of the biggest seminaries in 2006 and 2009 which you can look at.
• I have heard that #1 Fuller Theological Seminary has frozen faculty hiring and cut staff because of financial pressures. 
• Note the article about Luther Seminary below with the title "Struggling Seminaries."
• Note that Duke Divinity School and Princeton Theological Seminary are much higher on the list if one considers Full Time Equivalent. However, Greg Henson, in an article linked to below, notes that FTE is rather subjective and thus is not a great indicator. 

 

 

 

Other things worth reading about seminaries:

Barely 4 in 10 MDivs Plan To Pastor: Full-Time
Seminary grads who expect to pursue full-time ministry careers are down 10 percent over the past decade. May 30, 2013. Melissa Steffan. Christianity Today Gleanings

The Struggling Seminaries Mar 29, 2013 By Libby A. Nelson Inside Higher Ed

Greg Henson, Chief of Institutional Advancement at Northern Seminary, has done a lot of superb work on Association for Theological Schools data:

Incoming
Seminary Students – What do they bring?

Incoming
Seminary Students – Why are they here?

Incoming
Seminary Students – Who are they?

3
Reasons to Forget About FTE Part 2

3
Reasons to Forget About FTE

I just read a great piece by Will Willimon on seminaries: Ministry As Difficult As It Ought to Be

Andy Crouch and Richard Mouw did a lot of research on seminaries for a report called: Seminary of the Future. (The website has not been very well maintained or linear. It is probably best to read the content by reading through the Discussion Points).

Note: I did this research for a separate project but thought I would share it here for others' benefit.

A student sent me an email asking for my input. His email message is in bold and I intersperse comments.

It seems that a noticeable segment of the evangelical church is heading to what many call a "post-congregational" expression of Christian community. 

I probably wouldn’t say that but maybe you are referring to George Barna’s book Revolution where he suggests more groups are meeting in homes and workplaces instead of traditional churches—that may be true. I also think of nontraditional churches like Scum of the Earth Church or Church under the Bridge.

In light of this ecclesial structure shift, I'm wondering about the future of pastoral training and scholarship

I wonder if my paper on a theology of pastoral ministry might help here. 

Will the M.Div. remain?

Yes, as far as theological, biblical, practical training so that major heresies and errors of the past are avoided.

Will seminaries adjust?

There are some quite innovative seminaries out there. There are reports on the Association for Theological Schools website about other initiatives to tweak/transform theological education—see for example the latest issue of Theological Education. Consider too The Urban Ministry Institute (TUMI) of World Impact which is offering low cost quality theological education to indigenous (local) future pastors in urban environments. You might also be interested in Overseas Council which helps seminaries around the world with theological education. Leadership Network which is interested in innovative church ministry—primarily megachurch, multi-site, and church planting—has some articles on theological education.

Will seminaries adjust to a generation that isn't gathering on Sundays the way that past generations did?

People will still gather in communities (Heb 10:25 “not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing”) for conflict resolution (Matt 18:15f), sitting around the Scriptures (Acts 2:42f, 1 Cor 14), edifying one another with different gifts (1 Cor 12), baptism, Lord’s Supper, and prayer; but boundaries will be porous so outsiders can observe the church’s life together (1 Cor 14:24-25). You may appreciate John Howard Yoder’s Body Politics. 

The "missional community" movement seems to be largely uninterested in trained clergy (not that trained clergy are absent from the movement), so I wonder if you have any thoughts about this.

I don’t think I know this “missional community” group. The missional church people (Darrell Guder, Craig Van Gelder, George Hunsberger) are hugely into education. Regent College where I did my MDiv has some anti-clergy, anti-ordination tendencies because of their rootage in the Plymouth Brethren movement which saw clergy as denigrating the gifts of lay people and using the power to administrate the Lord’s Supper as means to control people. Regent College professor Paul Stevens’s work such as The Equipping Pastor focuses on how pastors can equip laity for the work of ministry. Gordon Fee treats the Pauline material regarding leadership in the church in Listening to the Spirit in the Text. I think these Regent College professors are right to critique the idea of the pastor as the one leader/preacher of the church. John Howard Yoder would be close to that view as well—see his book The Fullness of Christ: Paul's Revolutionary Vision of Universal Ministry. The Urban Ministry Institute does good theological education with people who may not even have a high school diploma—attempting to avoid an overemphasis on academic credentials but also providing good training for urban pastors.