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Emily Belz on What Is Christian Higher Education Worth? · Future Christian

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Martha Tatarnic: This is the Future Christian Podcast, a conversation about church leadership, fresh ideas, and
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Martha Tatarnic: the future of the church.
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MARTHA Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. Today Loren Richmond Jr. is in conversation with
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MARTHA Tatarnic: Emily Belz. Emily is a senior news editor. She has almost 20 years of
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MARTHA Tatarnic: experience in long-form feature reporting and writing in local, national, and international news. In
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MARTHA Tatarnic: addition to Christianity Today, she has written for The New York Times, World, Plough,
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MARTHA Tatarnic: The New York Daily News, The Hill, and the Indianapolis Star. She has won
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MARTHA Tatarnic: awards. Including one for feature writing from the Evangelical Press Association as well as
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MARTHA Tatarnic: the Zanger Prize. She lives in New York City. A reminder before we start
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MARTHA Tatarnic: today's conversation: please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review,
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MARTHA Tatarnic: questions, or ideas for future. Episodes. Your support and voice mean a lot to
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MARTHA Tatarnic: us in making this independent podcast possible.
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Loren: This is Loren Richmond Jr., and today I'm pleased to be joined by Emily
1:34
Loren: Belz. Hello, welcome to the show.
1:38
Emily Belz: Hey, thanks for having me, Loren.
1:40
Loren: So share a little bit before we begin begin just about your background, faith
1:44
Loren: journey, maybe how you got into writing and if you're if you want how
1:48
Loren: that connects to your faith.
1:53
Emily Belz: Sure, yeah. So, I grew up in a Presbyterian household. so the Reformed tradition
2:00
Emily Belz: was a big part of my formation, I would say. I started writing I
2:07
Emily Belz: guess when I was like seven, doing stories about like the Oregon Trail and
2:14
Emily Belz: all my siblings dying on the Oregon Trail and
2:21
Loren: Wow.
2:22
Emily Belz: you know, other novels that no one should ever read. but the I think
2:27
Emily Belz: because my family has been involved in journalism. my cousin was a reporter for
2:32
Emily Belz: the Minnesota Star Minneapolis Star Tribune. My uncle started a a Christian magazine called
2:37
Emily Belz: Worlds. my mom also worked for Worlds. So there's a lot of journalism in
2:42
Emily Belz: the family. so it was something I was exposed to as a career and
2:47
Emily Belz: I think
2:53
Loren: Mm-hmm.
2:56
Emily Belz: that helped me know that it was something I could do. So I started
3:00
Emily Belz: working in journalism when I was in college. I worked for local newspapers whenever
3:04
Emily Belz: I had free time. I would just ask them if they wanted articles for
3:08
Emily Belz: free and often they would say yes because who you know, who doesn't want
3:12
Emily Belz: a free article? so
3:16
Loren: Right.
3:17
Emily Belz: that that was how I got into it and then I started working in
3:22
Emily Belz: Christian media. I think just in general, the journalism landscape is tough as everyone
3:28
Emily Belz: knows, and going niche is a good way to be able to do journalism.
3:33
Emily Belz: So in some ways it was just a good career move to be able
3:39
Emily Belz: to do Christian media, but then it also did align with I think my
3:45
Emily Belz: my reformed upbringing in the sense that Reformed theology is a lot about integrating
3:50
Emily Belz: faith into all parts of life, and not seeing those as as separate things.
3:56
Emily Belz: that just doing good writing, for example, is a good expression of your faith.
4:01
Emily Belz: it doesn't have to be Christian writing. but so I I think that's part
4:07
Emily Belz: of how Christian media became a thing I wanted to do and was also
4:13
Emily Belz: a good career opportunity. So Yeah, I've been a Christianity today and I would
4:18
Emily Belz: say, you know, I'm in the evangelical camp, so I don't I'm not in
4:24
Emily Belz: a Presbyterian church anymore. I'm in a non denominational church, but I think I
4:29
Emily Belz: live in New York City, so in New York the denominational lines are a
4:35
Emily Belz: little bit more blurry.
4:41
Loren: Mm-hmm.
4:42
Emily Belz: so it's sort of whoever Whoever gets together a group of people to do
4:44
Emily Belz: a worship service on Sunday, it's gonna be a lot of different people. I
4:46
Emily Belz: mean, the
4:49
Loren: Yeah.
4:50
Emily Belz: church I'm in has reformed people, it has people who are Pentecostal, it has
4:54
Emily Belz: people who are Baptist, it's it's a mix. So I think that's just the
4:58
Emily Belz: nature of New York Christianity. It's a little different than the rest of the
5:02
Emily Belz: United States. So yeah, that's a little little about me.
5:07
Loren: I can imagine so. Yeah. I'm curious if I can ask this. So as
5:12
Loren: a pastor myself, as we regularly have on pastors and preachers on the podcast,
5:17
Loren: one of the stereotypes or maybe stereotypes, but one of the concerns I guess
5:22
Loren: about being a pastor and preaching regularly is is like how one of the
5:27
Loren: things that's commonly said is like preachers are often preaching for themselves. So once
5:32
Loren: preaching to the congregation becomes almost a spiritual practice of preaching to themselves. Do
5:37
Loren: you ever feel like that in your writing where you're sort of writing for
5:42
Loren: yourself in a way?
5:47
Emily Belz: That's such a perceptive thing to ask. Yeah, I I do feel that way.
5:52
Emily Belz: it's I think a a requirement of the job that you empathize with the
5:57
Emily Belz: people that you're writing about. And so that means that you care you be
6:02
Emily Belz: you learn to care about the things that they're caring about. So I think
6:08
Emily Belz: it you know, I I covered the some of the immigration raids in both
6:13
Emily Belz: Minnesota and then Los Angeles last year. and I think being able to be
6:18
Emily Belz: on the ground with pastors who were working through that in their communities helped
6:24
Emily Belz: me to understand what it would be like to do that in my to
6:29
Emily Belz: deal with that in my own community and to think about the immigrants in
6:34
Emily Belz: my congregation and what what are the things that our church could do to
6:40
Emily Belz: prepare for a situation like this. It wasn't out of the possibility that New
6:45
Emily Belz: York would go through the same thing that Minnesota went through, but thankfully that
6:50
Emily Belz: hasn't happened thus far. So it is a very good way to process the
6:56
Emily Belz: things that are happening in the world and it's kind of a gift to
7:01
Emily Belz: be able to do that as your job, to be able to wrestle through
7:06
Emily Belz: some of these really complicated daily issues and have time to sit and write
7:12
Emily Belz: and writing is an act of critical thinking and so it it helps you
7:17
Emily Belz: to process so many terrible things that we see every day in the news
7:22
Emily Belz: and find a way to either see a solution out of it to see
7:28
Emily Belz: here's how people are making something good out of something terrible or here's how
7:33
Emily Belz: you just suffer through something that's really hard. So it's been it's been good
7:38
Emily Belz: that way. I I think maybe there's similarities to being a pastor that as
7:44
Emily Belz: a pastor you get to see so many different people's lives and kind of
7:49
Emily Belz: learn how different people work through different issues in their lives. I don't know.
7:54
Emily Belz: I'm curious if you see
8:00
Loren: Yeah. Yeah.
8:02
Emily Belz: parallels there.
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Loren: Yeah, I would I would agree. And I think the line you used about
8:07
Loren: caring about the things they care about is I think foundational to being a
8:12
Loren: good pastor and not something I think I have always been good at and
8:16
Loren: you know, I think many pastors it's a it's a continued opportunity of growth
8:21
Loren: right there. So I I appreciate you
8:26
Emily Belz: Mm.
8:26
Loren: sharing that. Let's talk about some of your writing. So Emily wrote a a
8:32
Loren: piece back in the spring talking about this new regulation, federal regulation on Christian
8:38
Loren: higher ed. The the title for Christianity Today, Christian Colleges call new federal regulation
8:44
Loren: an existential threat. A proposed policy would label college programs failing and block federal
8:50
Loren: student loans if graduates Don't out earn peers without the degree. So a lot
8:56
Loren: happening in that title. Big words, some big kind of alarm bell words you
9:02
Loren: use. So
9:08
Emily Belz: Mm-hmm.
9:09
Loren: I think I said this before we started recording, and I I still feel
9:13
Loren: like that's true. As much as like I think being in church as an
9:17
Loren: industry is a struggling industry. Like the only other industry I would not want
9:21
Loren: to be in right now is Christian higher ed. I just said this to
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Emily Belz: Mm-hmm.
9:25
Loren: a friend I saw the other day who is in. Christian higher ed. Like,
9:29
Loren: how would you describe based on your reporting, your experience, how would you describe
9:34
Loren: the state of Christian higher ed right now?
9:39
Emily Belz: I would say it's the best of times and the worst of times.
9:44
Loren: Mm.
9:45
Emily Belz: I think you'll see examples across the spectrum in Christian higher ed of you
9:51
Emily Belz: know, overall enrollment is up in Christian colleges, it's up in seminaries. it's not
9:58
Emily Belz: a story of booming though, because we are seeing institutions continue to close and
10:05
Loren: Yeah.
10:06
Emily Belz: I think there's a lot of consolidation that's happening. I think the finances continue
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Emily Belz: to be such a challenge that if you are a smaller school, especially Bible
10:16
Emily Belz: schools, that doesn't have an endowment, you're in a tough place every single year.
10:21
Emily Belz: so there's been a lot of ups and downs. And we get reader email
10:27
Emily Belz: a lot that's saying, you're not covering the positive sides of Christian higher ed
10:32
Emily Belz: enough or you're making it sound like Christian higher ed is doing great and
10:37
Emily Belz: it's a disaster. And I think the tough thing is that both things are
10:42
Emily Belz: happening at the same time. I mean, in New York there's no longer as
10:48
Emily Belz: to my knowledge, there's no longer Protestant school in the area. So we had
10:53
Emily Belz: two big schools close a couple of years ago. Due to finances. so when
10:58
Emily Belz: you see that happen around you, you can feel like the this kind of
11:03
Emily Belz: doomsday feeling about Christian higher ed, but but there's just a lot of different
11:09
Emily Belz: trends happening at the same time, I think. And yeah, it's it's gonna it's
11:14
Emily Belz: an interesting time to be a Christian college president, that's for sure. I'm curious
11:19
Emily Belz: what your friend is experiencing who's in the the industry, if it's mostly negative
11:24
Emily Belz: for him.
11:30
Loren: Yeah. Well, I think what's most interesting to me is you use the term
11:35
Loren: how it's a s potentially a struggle for for Bible colleges. So years ago
11:41
Loren: I was I'm a graduate of a Bible college myself, now known as Mission
11:46
Loren: University. Shout out to them, whether they claim me or not. That's another question.
11:52
Loren: But somehow like still kicking in spite of w as I've seen in the
11:57
Loren: years since I've graduated, like similar sized peer institutions closing up shop for all
12:03
Loren: the reasons you mentioned. And I think the thing that really struck me about
12:08
Loren: this article and this new sort of federal direction is like people go to
12:14
Loren: Bible college, people go into ministry, like they're not making a lot of money.
12:19
Loren: And that was certainly the case, that's certainly been the case in my career.
12:25
Loren: And like I remember seeing data on this five, ten years back about how
12:30
Loren: like my own institution was on like a a naughty list to use a
12:36
Loren: to use a word because like the the career earnings or I forget what
12:41
Loren: the exact data was wasn't like up to snuff. but I mean I think
12:47
Loren: this whole thing about like I don't I don't know how to say like
12:52
Loren: I I don't think existential threat is is alarmist if that makes sense. Like
12:58
Emily Belz: Yeah.
12:58
Loren: What were what were you hearing? What what stood out to you?
13:02
Emily Belz: Yeah, I I agree with you, it's it's not alarmist. This particular situation with
13:07
Emily Belz: this federal regulation that puts an earnings test on colleges is I mean we
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Emily Belz: reported on it because the these heads of Christian education associations use the terms
13:19
Emily Belz: existential threat and they are not the types of people to say things like
13:25
Emily Belz: that for attention. they would rather not be in a news story. So when
13:31
Emily Belz: they start saying things like that, that's when my ears perk up. so it
13:37
Emily Belz: is pretty bad. It continues to be bad even though we reported on this
13:43
Emily Belz: a couple months ago. the the regulation that we we were writing about is
13:49
Emily Belz: now a final regulation. I think the the issue, just if your listeners don't
13:55
Emily Belz: know it kind of overall is that this would describe any program as failing
14:01
Emily Belz: where the graduates do not earn more than their peers without the degree. But
14:07
Emily Belz: the measurements are really odd. So it could be someone who's sixteen years out
14:13
Emily Belz: of high school with their their median income would be measured against somebody who
14:19
Emily Belz: just graduated from college. So there's a lot of kind of technical things about
14:25
Emily Belz: the regulation that don't make sense and The result being that the the programs
14:31
Emily Belz: that are most likely to fail under this regulation are religious studies programs, are
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Emily Belz: programs that are in seminaries or are training people to be pastors or ministry
14:43
Emily Belz: leaders in other ways. So
14:49
Loren: Yeah.
14:49
Emily Belz: it's pretty stark when you look at the numbers and this is all tied
14:54
Emily Belz: to financial aid. So if you failed these tests, you are no longer eligible
14:59
Emily Belz: for financial aid for those programs. so yeah, it's it's could be potentially really
15:04
Emily Belz: bad. I think there's hope still that there's some solution that could be found
15:10
Emily Belz: in Congress or something like that, or if the administration can issue a new
15:15
Emily Belz: regulation. but that's often a long process and it's it's it's not good. So
15:20
Emily Belz: I think that we were the first to report on this but I think
15:26
Emily Belz: it's getting more attention in the last couple of months that it's not only
15:31
Emily Belz: bad for religious colleges, it's bad for arts programs, it's bad for music colleges,
15:36
Emily Belz: it's bad for food. Yep.
15:42
Loren: Mean social work probably too, right? Social work programs.
15:46
Emily Belz: Yeah. anything that's basically missional where you're not doing it for the money.
15:52
Loren: Yeah.
15:54
Emily Belz: but this was all a reaction to the the Biden administration. I mean the
15:58
Emily Belz: loan forgiveness
16:02
Loren: Mm.
16:03
Emily Belz: move in the Biden administration and I think it was just a reaction that
16:07
Emily Belz: wasn't well thought out. So
16:11
Loren: Yeah.
16:12
Emily Belz: there's a lot of things that could be done just slightly differently in the
16:16
Emily Belz: regulation that the college association presidents would be happy with, like measure it, you
16:21
Emily Belz: know, ten years into someone's career instead of right after they graduate, measure the
16:25
Emily Belz: income. Or just tell, you know, tell prospective students, here is what you're expected
16:30
Emily Belz: to earn after you're
16:35
Loren: Yeah.
16:37
Emily Belz: which is something that the Obama administration had already done for schools. And so
16:41
Emily Belz: it's not like this is some brand new idea that the Trump administration came
16:45
Emily Belz: up with that we need to figure out if these degrees are worthwhile. this
16:50
Emily Belz: is something the Department of Education's thought about for a long time. So there
16:54
Emily Belz: are other resources, there's other ways that they could solve this without just describing
16:58
Emily Belz: all religion programs as bad.
17:03
Loren: Right. Right. Yeah, and this is this is what's interesting to me and I
17:08
Loren: don't I don't wanna get necessarily get too deep into the the politics of
17:14
Loren: this, but it it really surprises me like how much it seems that a
17:19
Loren: core piece, a core chunk of the administration's current voting block like would be
17:25
Loren: really negatively impacted by this. And I think that's what's That's where I'm struggling
17:30
Loren: to like to connect this. Is it just like these two you know, these
17:36
Loren: two kind of voting blocks not talking to one another? Like I I'm struggling
17:42
Emily Belz: Mm.
17:43
Loren: to understand that.
17:45
Emily Belz: Yeah, I mean in my reporting and talking to people who've been talking to
17:50
Emily Belz: like Christian college f folks who've been talking to people on the Hill, the
17:55
Emily Belz: problem is there's so much else going on. There's the Iran war, there's all
18:00
Emily Belz: this other stuff that Congress does not have time to even think about or
18:05
Emily Belz: worry about this issue and
18:10
Loren: Mm-hmm.
18:11
Emily Belz: so it's just hard for them to get a hearing from
18:14
Loren: Yeah.
18:15
Emily Belz: from lawmakers on this. I think, you know, if something if a particular school
18:20
Emily Belz: does get labeled as failing under this regulation, maybe that would be the point
18:25
Emily Belz: at which it would become politically more of a bad
18:31
Loren: Yeah, expedient. Yeah.
18:33
Emily Belz: issue for Republicans. But right now it just seems like it's not it's not
18:38
Emily Belz: something they urgently have to attend to, so they're not attending to it. But
18:43
Emily Belz: It's something that college presidents are having to attend to right away because the
18:48
Emily Belz: measurements for these earning tests are starting this school year. So
18:54
Loren: Okay.
18:56
Emily Belz: so they're having to make program decisions. Like, do we combine this religious studies
19:00
Emily Belz: program with our MBA so that those
19:04
Loren: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
19:05
Emily Belz: graduates are all counted together and then their earnings are higher than they would
19:09
Emily Belz: be otherwise. I mean it's kind of c crazy when you think about it
19:13
Emily Belz: that way, but they're having to figure out how do we just keep these
19:17
Emily Belz: programs afloat with it because the a the other alternative is a college just
19:21
Emily Belz: gets rid of its religious studies program and then it'll
19:25
Loren: Right.
19:26
Emily Belz: be fine. so so it's a it's a live issue for for colleges right
19:32
Emily Belz: now, even if it's not for politicians as much.
19:38
Loren: So I like I'm just thinking about the budget, the financial impact of this,
19:42
Loren: which I don't know if you've done that much a deep dive into, but
19:47
Loren: certainly I imagine for a a good chunk of students, federal financial aid is
19:52
Loren: a big part of how they pay their college tuition, which that college tuition
19:57
Loren: is a big part of how a Christian college or seminary finances their entire
20:02
Loren: program. So I mean losing out on that I think again, I I I
20:07
Loren: I don't think the words are of existential threat are too alarmist. Like
20:12
Emily Belz: Mm.
20:13
Loren: have you found any like direct numbers about what that those implications could be?
20:19
Emily Belz: Yeah, so the the actual statistics on how much students take out at Christian
20:26
Emily Belz: colleges, they take out fewer loans than students at other colleges. So but they're
20:34
Emily Belz: also not they're they're paying more. So
20:42
Loren: Yeah.
20:42
Emily Belz: it's it's more of an important loan, I guess I would say,
20:46
Loren: Yeah.
20:47
Emily Belz: to get and I think Christian colleges are not operating on a high profit
20:51
Emily Belz: margin. the other
20:56
Loren: Margin. Yeah.
20:58
Emily Belz: the you know, and it varies widely across colleges, like your Bible school I
21:03
Emily Belz: think would be hugely fin financially impacted by this versus a liberal arts school
21:08
Emily Belz: that has like I said, these like business programs and things like that where
21:13
Emily Belz: they have other students who are still getting the financial aid. So they would
21:18
Emily Belz: still have that revenue. But it's it's not yeah, it's not evenly spread and
21:24
Emily Belz: I think that students would the other part of it is that if students
21:29
Emily Belz: see that a program because part of the regulation is that you have to
21:34
Emily Belz: post on your website as a college, this program is deemed failing by the
21:39
Emily Belz: federal government.
21:45
Loren: No man.
21:46
Emily Belz: And so you're not gonna have students, even if students can afford to pay
21:51
Emily Belz: for a program, they're I mean, why would you enroll in something that's labeled
21:57
Emily Belz: failing? so I think it would be sort of like going to an unaccredited
22:03
Emily Belz: school or something like that. but yeah. but
22:09
Loren: Yeah. So I think this is interesting. I'm thinking about sort of the implications
22:14
Loren: of this. Like you already hinted at it. Like schools are wondering, do we
22:19
Loren: combine degrees and and for the last five, ten years that I've been a
22:24
Loren: part of these conversations or thinking about these things with others, certainly some people
22:30
Loren: propose like like again in my world, like an div is necessary for ordination
22:35
Loren: in in a lot of mainline Protestant seminary or many mainline Protestant denominations, certainly
22:40
Loren: certainly that's different right in evangelical or or non-denom spaces, but certainly like the
22:45
Loren: the MDiv is seen as professional, like legitimizing theology degree. So the the wonderment
22:51
Loren: has been like, do we make the MDiv more like an MBA? So I
22:56
Loren: guess are those actual conversations that are happening right now, even like I'm thinking
23:01
Loren: again about my own my own undergrad alma mater, like they have a A
23:06
Loren: missionary and nursing combined agree.
23:12
Emily Belz: Mhm. Yeah, and I would say that this is a conversation that's happening at
23:18
Emily Belz: mainline seminaries also. I mean it's it's hitting everybody. So it's there's no there's
23:25
Emily Belz: no division between evangelicals and mainline on this one.
23:32
Loren: Yeah.
23:32
Emily Belz: but yeah, it's it's I think everyone's making plans for if this goes through
23:38
Emily Belz: and I think even college presidents were caught off surprise caught off guard by
23:44
Emily Belz: by this. and I think there were hints that it was coming. I mean
23:50
Emily Belz: the This all came out of the one big beautiful bill, quote unquote, that
23:57
Loren: Mm-hmm.
23:59
Emily Belz: mentioned an earnings test but didn't say anything very deep about it or detailed.
24:03
Emily Belz: and so when the actual rule came out, then that was in, you know,
24:07
Emily Belz: just a few months ago, that had all these details about well, you have
24:12
Emily Belz: to put it on your website and this it you know, applies to programs
24:16
Emily Belz: that are thirty people. Like th a thirty person program will be compared to
24:20
Emily Belz: the national average of income, which is just
24:25
Loren: Yeah. Tough.
24:27
Emily Belz: math mathematically wild. So I think that's when people started realizing, we actually have
24:32
Emily Belz: to make big changes to our programs. But I don't know specifically right now
24:37
Emily Belz: of any like Bible programs that have been combined with a business program yet.
24:42
Emily Belz: I think they're just preparing for that if if their numbers are bad. The
24:47
Emily Belz: other interesting thing about this is that colleges don't have the numbers on the
24:52
Emily Belz: income.
24:57
Loren: Hmm.
24:57
Emily Belz: the IRS has that number and so the federal government can look at it,
25:02
Emily Belz: but colleges won't know until the federal government tells them, Hey, your
25:07
Loren: Mm-hmm.
25:08
Emily Belz: your graduates are failing the earnings test. so this is kind of a mystery
25:12
Emily Belz: for them. Two that we'll find out when we find out if we're failing.
25:16
Emily Belz: So you can't really prepare super well for
25:21
Loren: Yeah, that's that's an awkward conversation to have with graduates being like, Please tell
25:24
Loren: us how much you make, you know,
25:28
Emily Belz: Yeah.
25:28
Loren: in your first job at a college or five years down the road.
25:32
Emily Belz: Yeah. It's whether your major will continue or not for future generations.
25:38
Loren: Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask more of a philosophical question. I'm thinking of a
25:43
Loren: conversation I had a little while back with John Hawthorne, who was a sociologist
25:49
Loren: and author and worked his entire career in Christian higher ed. He talked about
25:54
Loren: like this this sort of trend or this this habit of Christian ecologists it's
26:00
Loren: sort of become like zombie institutions. who sort of lose their sense of purpose.
26:06
Emily Belz: Mm.
26:08
Loren: In these conversations you've had, has there been any sort of honest self critique
26:12
Loren: or or awareness of hey, we this maybe is an opportunity for us to
26:17
Loren: reevaluate and and reassess things?
26:22
Emily Belz: Yeah, I think particularly
26:23
Loren: Do you think that yeah?
26:24
Emily Belz: yeah. I mean, I think that colleges college presidents I've talked to are aware
26:30
Emily Belz: that the financial aid situation is maybe not what it should be and that
26:36
Emily Belz: there need to be changes on that front and students need to be more
26:42
Emily Belz: aware of what they're getting into when they sign all these sign off on
26:48
Emily Belz: all these loans and everything. so I think there was especially among the more
26:54
Emily Belz: conservative schools, there was frustration I think during the Biden administration with the loan
27:00
Emily Belz: pro the loan rules that you're just giving money to kids that they don't
27:06
Emily Belz: really know what to like you can't like a college can't say no to
27:12
Emily Belz: a kid taking a certain amount of money, in federal aid. So I think
27:18
Emily Belz: now they're like, well it would be good to shift a little bit back,
27:24
Emily Belz: but this is way too far and it leaves us without a lot of
27:30
Emily Belz: choices for how we structure our programs. I don't know further than that what
27:36
Emily Belz: philosophical conversations they're having. I mean I think that there's so many headwinds right
27:42
Emily Belz: now. on top of the the this particular regulation, There's the international student issue.
27:48
Emily Belz: So a
27:54
Loren: Yeah. Yep.
27:55
Emily Belz: lot of Christian schools are missional and so that means having a lot of
28:00
Emily Belz: international students. And that's not just them trying to get money from international students.
28:05
Emily Belz: That's we believe that it's important for the gospel to go to the nations.
28:10
Emily Belz: And so we have people from all nations at our school.
28:16
Loren: Mm-hmm.
28:17
Emily Belz: so the restrictions under the Trump administration for international visas is another big thing
28:23
Emily Belz: that colleges are dealing with. I think the changes in DEI grants also are
28:30
Emily Belz: affecting a lot of schools. and it's it's happening in you know, in the
28:37
Emily Belz: midst of also these huge societal changes like artificial intelligence. So I think there's
28:44
Emily Belz: a a lot of things pulling schools in different directions and you know, the
28:51
Emily Belz: different ones are experimenting with different things. We've we've written about some school some
28:58
Emily Belz: Christian colleges. I think Hope College is experimenting with no tuition. so they're
29:05
Loren: Mm-hmm.
29:06
Emily Belz: asking students to give back to the school after they graduate.
29:10
Loren: Yeah.
29:11
Emily Belz: and, I think it's good for these schools to be experimenting because the traditional
29:16
Emily Belz: model is not gonna work for everybody. It it might work
29:21
Loren: Yeah.
29:21
Emily Belz: for a lot of schools, it's not gonna work for everybody. but I think
29:25
Emily Belz: yeah it's it's a time of a lot of change. We hit the we
29:29
Emily Belz: hit the demographic cliff in twenty twenty five, I think, which is the expected
29:33
Emily Belz: time that this is the peak college enrollment. for the United
29:37
Loren: Yeah.
29:38
Emily Belz: States and from that point on it's gonna decline. now we're not seeing the
29:41
Emily Belz: evidence of that, but it's it's gonna be an interesting time the next ten
29:44
Emily Belz: years, I think.
29:47
Loren: Yeah. Yeah, I'm thinking about this. You've already you've already touched on it little
29:51
Loren: bit, but this is again sort of a talking point in church circles. There's
29:56
Loren: this idea of like the inherited church of what we think of when we
30:01
Loren: think of church, like building, you know, campus, they've been around for a long,
30:06
Loren: long time. They have a a full time staff and they meet regularly in
30:10
Loren: their own building. whereas more and more The idea is like a worshiping community
30:15
Loren: is gonna have to explore other ways of of being church, you know, renting,
30:20
Loren: building, untraditional gatherings, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So when you look at
30:25
Loren: Christian higher ed, you're you're already hinting at it already, like some of the
30:29
Loren: ways that Christian higher ed are exploring, like certainly it seems like there's gonna
30:34
Loren: be some institutions who are sitting on a nice endowment, right? Who can afford
30:39
Loren: to do free tuition, like my seminary, God bless them, can do free seminary.
30:44
Loren: but like for those institutions that don't have the money, like the it seems
30:48
Loren: like they're really gonna have to lean into really non traditional ways of educating
30:53
Loren: people if they're they wanna continue to exist as some form of educating institution,
30:58
Loren: yeah?
31:03
Emily Belz: Mhm. Yeah, I think I'm not a I'm not a higher ed no one
31:08
Emily Belz: should hire me to be their consultant for higher ed, but I I will
31:14
Emily Belz: say just from covering a number of different schools in detail that it seems
31:20
Emily Belz: like it's very much understanding like leadership understanding what the institution is and making
31:25
Emily Belz: decisions, strategic decisions, based on that and what its capabilities are. So that sounds
31:31
Emily Belz: kind of general, but I think about some schools can transition fully to online
31:37
Emily Belz: education and that becomes a very good financial model for them because that's kind
31:43
Emily Belz: of like they're built that way. Other schools it just wouldn't work at all.
31:48
Emily Belz: And I think you know, in New York this schools, Alliance University, which closed,
31:54
Emily Belz: which was A hundred and forty year old school, it had a huge student
32:00
Emily Belz: population here and I think that they just made some bad strategic decisions late
32:05
Emily Belz: in the game of buying like a fifty million dollar building in Wall Street
32:11
Emily Belz: and things like that where you're like, Okay, well it's just it was just
32:17
Emily Belz: some bad decisions that weren't in line with what the nature of the school
32:23
Loren: Reality.
32:24
Emily Belz: was. this was a school that it was people who weren't generally like going
32:29
Emily Belz: into missions work, they don't really want to go to a Wall Street fancy
32:34
Emily Belz: building, for school. And so I think that would be my kind of general
32:39
Emily Belz: thing is just that schools need to understand who they are and then build
32:44
Emily Belz: off of that to what in whichever kind of experimental way that they go,
32:49
Emily Belz: 'cause there's a lot of different things you can do now, like you're saying.
32:54
Emily Belz: But it it seems like it has to align with what your founding mission
32:59
Emily Belz: is in some way.
33:04
Loren: Is there anything else on this topic we should hit before we transition?
33:11
Emily Belz: I guess just one other thing I would say is that I think one
33:16
Emily Belz: thing that Christian colleges have to deal with is this perception that they are
33:22
Emily Belz: expensive places to go. I and that is, you know, in particular cases with
33:28
Emily Belz: students they might have options that are cheaper than a Christian college, but overall
33:34
Emily Belz: their costs have not gone up as much as other schools. across the board.
33:39
Emily Belz: so it is expensive to go to college, it's expensive to go to seminary.
33:45
Emily Belz: but I think there is a maybe a perception problem that Christian colleges have
33:51
Emily Belz: to deal with it. They're really not these fancy private school type places in
33:57
Emily Belz: a lot of cases. you can find the expensive schools that will charge you
34:03
Emily Belz: a lot of money, but there's a lot of Christian colleges that are actually
34:08
Emily Belz: pretty middle of the road options for college education. So I think that would
34:14
Emily Belz: be one thing overall that I think these schools will have to figure out
34:20
Emily Belz: kind of their branding on that or something if they want students to consider
34:26
Emily Belz: them more going forward. So
34:32
Loren: feels like this feeds into the problem, right? Cause like schools are like, you
34:36
Loren: know, we want to be affordable for for for students who want to go
34:41
Loren: into ministry, which means we're not gonna pay our employees and our teachers super
34:45
Loren: well, which contributes to low incomes. alas, it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah.
34:50
Emily Belz: Which existential threat, yeah.
34:54
Loren: Let me ask let me ask two more questions here before we take a
34:58
Loren: break. You've obviously done a lot of reporting on immigration. Like I'm curious if
35:02
Loren: you wanna just speak to the challenges that you've seen in local churches, how
35:06
Loren: this has really affected the body of Christ, among local churches, the immigration crackdowns.
35:11
Emily Belz: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm hmm. This is something that we want to cover really well
35:17
Emily Belz: at Christianity Today because like the New York Times does a great job covering
35:23
Emily Belz: immigration. other outlets will do a great job. but this the way that it
35:30
Emily Belz: affects churches is something I think that we uniquely can contribute. So I think
35:36
Emily Belz: it's really important to us to do a lot of reporting on that. I
35:43
Emily Belz: think that before Trump took office this time around, we there was a estimate
35:49
Emily Belz: of just the millions of Christians that would be gone from the United States
35:56
Emily Belz: if these mass deportations happened. so we reported on that and I think while
36:02
Emily Belz: the the numbers are not quite as big as Trump promised, they are still
36:09
Emily Belz: very high and we're seeing the effects of that I think in a number
36:15
Emily Belz: of ways. I mean we're hearing from pastors all the time who tip us
36:22
Emily Belz: off and say, you know, I was deported, my c my congregation doesn't have
36:28
Emily Belz: a leader anymore.
36:35
Loren: Hmm.
36:35
Emily Belz: I've been in the United States for twenty years. I mean, this is the
36:38
Emily Belz: kind of stuff we hear all the time and We can't report on all
36:41
Emily Belz: of it because it's so many stories.
36:44
Loren: Yeah.
36:45
Emily Belz: I think the Minnesota stories are helpful because it kind of focuses readers' attention
36:52
Emily Belz: on here's one community that is working through this. And it is a lot
36:59
Emily Belz: of times conservative evangelical Latino churches that are have been hit the hardest. I
37:06
Emily Belz: saw that in the Twin Cities that that people who were big supporters of
37:13
Emily Belz: Trump were seeing their congregations just kind of empty out, not only
37:21
Loren: Mm.
37:22
Emily Belz: from deportations but the fear of coming to church because people were
37:27
Loren: Yeah.
37:27
Emily Belz: being targeted on the roads and all of that. So it's something that I've
37:33
Emily Belz: as a reporter covering the US for almost twenty years now, I haven't seen
37:40
Emily Belz: I guess fear like that, for people to even come to worship.
37:47
Loren: Yeah.
37:49
Emily Belz: it's very jarring when you are on the ground in when you were on
37:54
Emily Belz: the ground in Minneapolis to see the real life effects. So yeah, it's not
38:00
Emily Belz: it's not really numbers anymore, it's real people. It's every week that we're hearing
38:06
Emily Belz: about this, even though the the s the surge in Minnesota is stopped. this
38:11
Emily Belz: is happening still around the country and we're seeing a lot more arrests in
38:17
Emily Belz: the last couple of weeks. so it's I think it's it's a big thing
38:23
Emily Belz: that's gonna affect churches in the US for a long time. but
38:29
Loren: Yeah, yeah.
38:31
Emily Belz: that's something that we're gonna try to cover as best we can, even though
38:36
Emily Belz: it's it's a little too much for of the few staff that we have,
38:41
Emily Belz: but yeah, I think it I think it's a really important story and and
38:46
Emily Belz: I think our readers are tuned into that as well. It's there's been a
38:51
Emily Belz: lot of interest. I think there was a a couple that was arrested, a
38:57
Emily Belz: pastor couple, both of them are pastors, and were pressured to sign self deportation
39:02
Emily Belz: papers this past week and I think that was one of our our stories
39:07
Emily Belz: that had the most traffic the last few days. So so there's still a
39:12
Emily Belz: lot of I think Christians are tuned into this issue even if it's not
39:17
Emily Belz: as big of a story in most news outlets right now.
39:23
Loren: I wanna talk to you just have your thoughts per se on journalism. Certainly
39:27
Loren: like the these are interesting times we're living in. There's so much societal societal
39:32
Loren: shifts around institutions and norms and certainly journalism is you know no stranger to
39:37
Loren: that. Do you
39:42
Emily Belz: Mm-hmm.
39:43
Loren: wanna share like just any thoughts you have on journalism per se? Certainly there's
39:47
Loren: Substack and and other sort of individualized trends seem to be going strong now.
39:52
Loren: But what do think about institutions and journalism and what are your hopes and
39:56
Loren: thoughts around that?
40:01
Emily Belz: Mm. I think that yeah, everything's becoming micro niches and people are finding their
40:08
Emily Belz: sub stack people to follow and
40:15
Loren: Yeah.
40:15
Emily Belz: my younger relatives all h follow these, you know, independent journalists on X and
40:20
Emily Belz: things like that. So I think there's
40:25
Loren: Mm-hmm.
40:25
Emily Belz: just kind of this atomization of how media is consumed, but if I were
40:31
Emily Belz: if I were in charge and had billions of dollars, I would wanna build
40:37
Emily Belz: back local newspapers. I think if we all cared about who are you know,
40:43
Emily Belz: I was on a I was in an Uber recently in another city and
40:49
Emily Belz: this person was talking to me about Mayor Mamdani and all of
40:55
Loren: Mm-hmm.
40:55
Emily Belz: his opinions about Mayor Mam Dani. And I'm like, all right, well, you've obviously
40:58
Emily Belz: read a lot about the New York mayor, but who who's your mayor? And
41:01
Emily Belz: he didn't know who the
41:04
Loren: Right.
41:04
Emily Belz: mayor of his city was. And I'm like, okay, this is a perfect encapsulation.
41:07
Emily Belz: Like, it matters
41:11
Loren: Mm-hmm.
41:11
Emily Belz: so much more that that guy knows who his mayor is than he what
41:15
Emily Belz: his opinion of Zoran Mamdani is.
41:19
Loren: Mm-hmm.
41:20
Emily Belz: so I guess I w that cat's out of the bag, but I wish
41:24
Emily Belz: that we could rebuild local news more. I think that when I do national
41:29
Emily Belz: news for Christianity Today, I try to think of it as doing local news
41:34
Emily Belz: about a particular thing. So go to Minneapolis and make it as local, local,
41:39
Emily Belz: local as possible.
41:44
Loren: huh.
41:45
Emily Belz: but it's just it's it's a tough environment for sure. I think the th
41:50
Emily Belz: the incentives are to Right about celebrities, the incentives are to do a lot
41:56
Emily Belz: of content and it's just not none of the incentives are towards things that
42:02
Emily Belz: are good for society in my opinion. So it's just sort of figuring out
42:08
Emily Belz: I think
42:14
Loren: What do you mean? I have no idea what you're talking about.
42:17
Emily Belz: Yeah, I think that the nonprofit news model is good. I'm I'm happy to
42:22
Emily Belz: see a lot of that popping up around the country, so I think there's
42:28
Emily Belz: there are some glimmers of light, but it's a tough landscape. I mean we've
42:34
Emily Belz: seen AI really take a bite out of everyone's I think ad revenue, and
42:40
Emily Belz: that that becomes an e ex an existential threat to a lot of media
42:46
Emily Belz: companies. so there's
42:52
Loren: Yeah.
42:52
Emily Belz: a lot to figure out. It feels a little bit like I started in
42:57
Emily Belz: two thousand eight when all the social media companies were really taking off.
43:02
Loren: Mm-hmm.
43:03
Emily Belz: and it feels similar right now with AI that there's so much change happening
43:07
Emily Belz: and it's a question of whether media companies can can figure out how to
43:12
Emily Belz: how to be their own thing in the midst of that
43:17
Loren: Yeah.
43:18
Emily Belz: and survive. So yeah, it's it's not pretty. It's not pretty.
43:25
Loren: Okay, I've kinda ruined my usual closing questions by asking you other these other
43:29
Loren: questions. Let me ask you like one final question before I let you go.
43:34
Loren: You're a reporter, you're always in the news here, writing about the news. What
43:38
Loren: do you think history will remember from our current time and place?
43:43
Emily Belz: Wow, what will history remember? probably Boy, my mind's going so many different directions.
43:53
Emily Belz: I think history will remember our excellent our excellent fast food industry. No, I'm
44:03
Emily Belz: just kidding. I don't know. I don't
44:13
Loren: Yeah.
44:14
Emily Belz: know. I think that I think that we're living through a moment that's similar
44:21
Emily Belz: to COVID, in the sense that there's all these societal changes happening that maybe
44:29
Emily Belz: we'll see in a few years. and it's hard to know I think it
44:37
Emily Belz: it's it's just hard to know which which of the things is gonna be
44:45
Emily Belz: the big thing. But I Like that that we're still finding ways to be
44:52
Emily Belz: communities and in the midst of all of this, in the midst of the
45:00
Emily Belz: internet kind of isolating everyone and in the midst of politics dividing everyone, I
45:08
Emily Belz: think that I still see just in my place and time, people going on
45:16
Emily Belz: the little league baseball parade down my street and you know, giving each other
45:24
Emily Belz: their stuff through Facebook by nothing groups and doing things that are just small
45:31
Emily Belz: community things but I think are maybe more meaningful than not to get too
45:39
Emily Belz: philosophical, but I do feel like it's sort of the it's a wonderful life
45:47
Emily Belz: view of the world where You know, Potter seems like the big guy, but
45:55
Emily Belz: the actual most important person in town is George Bailey who
46:03
Loren: Mm.
46:04
Emily Belz: is doing just kind of non lucrative things like being a good friend and
46:11
Emily Belz: you know, having a family and loving the people around him. So I don't
46:18
Emily Belz: know. I think that that stuff matters more than the big stuff. So
46:25
Loren: Which I suppose ties into the bulk of this conversation about what really matters.
46:30
Loren: Is it ultimately economic value or these other sometimes non quantifiable, non tangible things?
46:36
Loren: So really wanna appreciate this conversation. share if you would. Obviously I'll make sure
46:42
Loren: to put links to the episode or the articles in the show notes. Any
46:48
Loren: ways folks can connect with you, connect with your work, support your work.
46:54
Emily Belz: Mm. Yeah, thanks. I think my work's all on Christianity Today's website. I'm on
47:00
Emily Belz: mostly Blue Sky and Substack these days. I can't quite figure out what social
47:06
Emily Belz: media is a fun place to be that's not gonna make you crazy.
47:13
Loren: Yeah.
47:15
Emily Belz: but yeah, so you can find me there. I think a quick Google will
47:18
Emily Belz: lead you lead you to me. But Yeah, it's been really nice to talk
47:22
Emily Belz: to you. I like I like all the connections that you make. It's very
47:25
Emily Belz: writerly of you.
47:29
Loren: Thank you. Thank you. Well, appreciate your time. We always leave folks with a
47:33
Loren: word of peace, so may God's peace be with you.
47:38
Emily Belz: And also with you.