A Christian college trend

There is a disturbing trend that I have noticed at Christian colleges. It is a trend that has been confirmed to me by other professors with whom I have spoken. Most faith-based schools rightly view their professors as performing a ministry. I think that is how most professors view their jobs as well. However, many schools use this as a justification to pay professors less than they are worth. Full Professors at schools within the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities earn only 65% of the national average for Full Professors.

How many Doctors or Lawyers would be willing to take a 35% pay cut simply because they are Christians?

A professor I know, now retired, told me about how the Board of Trustees at a Christian college he worked for told the faculty they paid them low salaries in order to keep them humble.

How big is God?

In reality, I think there is a different dynamic at play. I have heard administrators and those who support the current practice refer to belief in a Big God who will stretch the dollars for the faculty. The idea is somewhat akin to Elijah being fed by ravens. If the faculty are faithful in serving God through their teaching, then God will not abandon them, He will stretch their dollars. I’ve been told of faculty members whose children’s clothing “miraculously” lasted longer than one would expect.

On one level, this all sounds like a reasonable expectation of a person living a life of faith. But it occurred to me a couple of years back that a God who is big enough to stretch the dollars of the faculty ought also to be big enough to provide the institution with sufficient resources to properly compensate the faculty. In reality, I think, at times, this borders on spiritual abuse. On the one hand, institutions want the faculty to believe in a God who is big enough to stretch their dollars yet the institutions seemingly do not believe in a God who is big enough to provide them the appropriate funds to properly support their faculty.

Apparently not that big

This hit home to me on several fronts when I was heading the art department at Louisiana College, now Louisiana Christian University, a Southern Baptist college. There were two big eye-openers. The first was that I had to have my children on state aid to receive medical coverage. The second was that we could not even afford to add just my wife to my health insurance. My family of seven was literally making just a few dollars too much to qualify for food stamps.

This was not a situation unique to me. I knew several other faculty who were in the same position. Many faculty preached on weekends because they needed the extra money to make ends meet. I know one faculty member who worked summers at a chain bookstore to try and make ends meet. I remember one senior faculty member laughing out loud when I innocently mentioned salaries keeping up with inflation. Several of the faculty attended the same church we attended. Whenever the Church brought in a new youth minister or any minister, they made $10-15,000 more than we did. I don’t begrudge them a living wage. But it always seemed odd to me that a youth minister made so much more than faculty and department heads.

Not an isolated example

This issue struck home to me again when I was working on developing the Faith on View Christian College Rankings. In that study, many schools paid assistant professors less than the average at my former institution. In all, 85 of the 191 institutions pay less (14 schools have not made salaries public and did not report them for the purpose of the study). Several schools paid less than $30,000 a year. That is astonishing to me.

A moral responsibility

These colleges have a moral responsibility to care for their employees. A God who is big enough to stretch the faculty dollars and extend the life of their children’s clothing can also provide for the institutions to properly care for those under their care.  God hasn’t always used ravens to care for his people. He dropped manna from heaven and compelled the Egyptians to give gold to the Israelites when they fled Egypt.

I am by no means proposing a ‘prosperity gospel’ approach to administration. Still, colleges have a responsibility to pay their faculty commensurate with their qualifications and secular institutions of comparable size. It is a shame for families that have sacrificed, often ten-plus years in graduate school, and carry significant debt loads to rely on public aid to sustain their families. But mostly, let’s not make this a spiritual issue where the faculty are somehow seen as less than spiritual because they desire a living wage.  Colleges need to be held accountable to pay such a wage. A worker is worth his wage.

This essay is from our Anastasis Series where we resurrect articles from the past that are either still relevant today or can be easily updated. This piece was first published on March 3, 2013, and has been lightly edited and updated.

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