#950 Thoughts on the Closing of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Dr. craig’s response

I am not only an alumnus of TEDS, but my first teaching job was in the Philosophy of Religion department at Trinity. So it feels very strange to realize that the school is no more. The signs of decline were evident even before the school terminated the Philosophy of Religion department in the late 1980s. A couple of years ago at a conference at Trinity, Ken Keathley, a theologian and educator at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, told me ominously that because of a huge demographic shift in the United States, many small colleges and seminaries would be shutting their doors over the next 10 years. Now that has come to pass with Trinity itself. Therefore, I have asked Ken to write a guest Question of the Week sharing his reflections on this tragic event.--WmLC

My wife, Penny, and I are both graduates of Tennessee Temple University (TTU), an independent evangelical school that once stood proudly in Chattanooga, Tennessee. When we attended in the 1970s, it was a thriving institution with more than 4,000 students. I was honored, years later, to give the inaugural address at the installation of one of its presidents. So when TTU finally closed its doors in 2015, it felt deeply personal. A part of our story—and of so many others—was gone.

This spring, I felt that familiar ache again. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) announced it would be closing its Deerfield, Illinois, campus and merging operations with a Canadian university. The news marks yet another chapter in the ongoing story of Christian colleges and seminaries shuttering their campuses. But this one cuts deep. TEDS isn’t just any school—it has been one of the most influential institutions in the evangelical world over the past six decades.

The closure of TEDS, along with others like The King’s College and Clarks Summit University, is part of a larger trend affecting all higher education. Since 2019, more than 100 smaller institutions—many of them private colleges, mainline Protestant schools, and even Catholic universities—have either closed or been absorbed into larger entities. It’s not just evangelical schools that are hurting, but for those of us in that world, the loss feels especially acute.

What’s driving this trend? The reasons differ from school to school, but those who follow higher education often cite three common pressures.

First, the cost of traditional higher education has exploded. For smaller institutions without the benefit of large endowments or massive student populations, the financial burden of maintaining campus facilities and paying faculty salaries has simply become unsustainable. The economics of the residential college model just don’t scale well when you’re dealing with a few hundred students.

Second, we’ve seen the rise of what you might call the Amazon.com effect—the massive shift to online education. Over the past 15 years, online learning has upended the traditional college experience. Many smaller schools, especially Christian ones, built their identity around an intimate, in-person experience and were understandably reluctant to pivot. But the institutions that did embrace online learning—some now enrolling over 100,000 students—have left their peers behind.

And third, though it's less obvious, the financial burden on students themselves has become a real obstacle. Fewer young people (and their parents) are willing to go into debt—especially for degrees in the humanities, which includes theological education. With student loan debt in the U.S. hovering around $1.8 trillion, many students are opting for different paths. For tuition-dependent schools like TEDS—with limited endowments and little denominational support—this combination of shrinking enrollment and rising costs became a perfect storm.

Things aren’t going to get easier. For the past 15 years the US has been experiencing what many are calling a “demographic cliff.” Since the financial crisis of 2008–2010, the nation’s birth rate has dropped sharply, and that decline is now showing up in our schools. The number of high school graduates is projected to fall by 10-13% over the next decade. This decline will not be uniform across the country: the South is expected to see modest growth, while the Northeast, Midwest, and West will face more pronounced declines. California, New York, and Illinois are forecasted to lose up to 30% of their graduating cohorts, while Florida and North Carolina may see double-digit growth. Challenging days are ahead for higher education, including Christian colleges and seminaries.

As someone who has already grieved the closure of his own alma mater, I feel a deep sense of sympathy for the graduates and community of TEDS. The pain is real. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School has played a central role in shaping evangelical thought and leadership in the second half of the 20th century. Academically speaking, its faculty was second to none. In addition, it trained generations of pastors, scholars, and missionaries. Its graduates have served the Church around the world with faithfulness and courage.

So even as the Deerfield campus goes quiet, the legacy of TEDS will continue to echo through its alumni, its publications, its theological contributions, and above all, through the gospel witness of those it has equipped.

To Trinity Evangelical Divinity School—thank you.

(Ken Keathley is Research Professor of Theology at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, NC, occupying the Jesse Hendley Chair of Biblical Theology)