A Third Way for Christian Higher Education: Building a Thriving System, Not Just a School

Across the landscape of private Christian colleges today I see presidents and boards wrestling with two tough choices for financial and missional strength:

🔹 Go it alone and try to grow with limited resources, or

 🔹 Merge and risk losing their mission, governance, and identity.

What if there were a third way?

At the request of a group of CCCU presidents, my colleagues and I at Christian Education Services and Core Education Services, PBC have been building the architecture for exactly that: a new kind of business model—a formally affiliated private system of Christian universities committed to long-term financial and missional health. 

This isn’t a merger. And it’s not a loose consortium. It’s a strategic alliance that preserves each institution’s mission, board, brand, and theological distinctiveness—while enabling real collaboration, shared infrastructure, and collective strength.

WHAT DO MEMBER INSTITUTIONS GET?

 – Shared operating playbooks for enrollment, finance, marketing, and IT

 – Access to digital campus tools and revenue diversification plans

 – Joint capital planning and no-interest implementation funds

 – Executive and board leadership development through a system-wide learning community

 – Mission-first support from CES and proven operational execution from Core Education, PBC

WHAT'S THE ASK?

 – Formal governance and operational participation

 – A commitment to transparency, shared costs, and strategic execution

 – Long-term affiliation as part of a purpose-driven movement

We’re not the first to rethink the system model. This has been discussed for years. Initiatives like TCS Education System, Lindenwood Education System, and Antioch’s Coalition for the Common Good are providing this model for private colleges. 

As Michael Horn writes in From Reopen to Reinvent, “The institutions that thrive in the future will be those that rethink their models, not just tweak them.”

And as Robert Zemsky reminds us: “Sustainability will depend less on endowment size and more on an institution’s willingness to change.”

We believe some Christian universities need to consider this kind of change—bold, faithful, and collaborative.

If you're a president or board chair who knows your institution needs a new path forward, we’d love to talk.

📨 david.wright@ceserv.org

 🔗 www.ceserv.org