This is great news! Let’s pray that our children continue to attend good schools that will protect them and teach them truth.

From Daily Caller. Christian colleges and universities are seeing an increase in enrollment despite the national enrollment rate of college students being on a decline, higher education experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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The national undergraduate enrollment rate dropped 1.1% during the fall 2022 semester while the rate declined a total of 4.2% since 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Many faith-based institutions, however, saw an increase in enrollment which higher education experts claim is because of these institutions’ commitment to their roots.

“We have doubled down on our core essence and purpose as an institution and made that well known to prospective students,” Jonathan Sanford, University of Dallas (UD) president, told the DCNF.

UD, a “Catholic, liberal arts university known for [its] intellectual rigor and [its] deep commitment to the Catholic faith and a robust, Western-based classical education,” according to Sanford, welcomed its second-largest incoming class to the Texas school in fall 2022, its website reads. The school set its record enrollment rate during the 2021-2022 academic year and welcomed 487 freshman students.

“I think there’s a deep hunger in the souls of all individuals, but particularly in this generation, for a real education and real exposure to the timeless ideas and classical texts as well as real exposure to how to build upon those timeless truths and classical texts in order to be innovative contributors to the renewal of culture,” Sanford said. …

“It is heartening that schools like Hillsdale College—schools that take a classical approach to the liberal arts—are seeing an increase in student interest, and that the media are taking note,” Emily Stack Davis, executive director of media relations and communications at Hillsdale College, told the DCNF. “At Hillsdale, we recognize that education should point to the permanent things—an understanding of what it means to be human, how to live a good life, and what leads to happiness.” …

“We at Hillsdale understand that a college requires working and being together. Indeed, the word ‘college’ comes from the Latin for ‘partnership,’” she said. “During the pandemic, we continued to learn together, in person, to the greatest extent possible.” …

“Students are drawn to colleges with a clear, distinct identity,” Adam Kissel, visiting fellow on higher education reform at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “Devoutly Christian colleges out-compete colleges that are Christian-in-name-only.” …

The increase in Christian school enrollment may also be attributable to a higher birth rate in religious families than secular ones, Kissel said.

John Wesley Reid, editor-in-chief for the Standing for Freedom Center at Liberty University, told the DCNF that the increase in college enrollment piggybacks off the spike in students attending Christian high schools. He explained that when parents witnessed the curriculum taught in public schools during the 2020 pandemic there was a shift toward more faith-based learning.

“2020, the pandemic, forced parents to be involved with their kids’ education again. Everybody was at home. Everybody saw the screens, and the parents were like ‘now wait a minute, this is not right,’” Reid explained. “2020 was a revelation to a lot of parents. They saw what was happening, they were not OK with it, and so since 2020 and 2021 and into 2022, a lot of students were pulled out of the … public schools and put into Christian schools.” …

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(Excerpt from Daily Caller. Photo Credit: Charles DeLoye on Unsplash)