Funding: $2 million, plus the Cadieux match

By increasing our scholarship endowment, PTS seeks to make seminary affordable to every student who has the intellectual skill and evidences the call to prepare for ministry.

In previous generations, congregations substantially funded seminary education by giving directly to the seminaries, or to students they knew (their “Timothys” and “Priscillas”), or through the agencies of the larger church. Today at PTS, the cost of educating students for ministry is supported primarily through the annual fund and by students themselves. With the limited amount of endowment income available to PTS, we are unable to provide adequate and substantial scholarships to as many students as are deserving. Some students who sense a call to ministry cannot afford a PTS education, although our costs are no more than comparable seminaries.

In addition, some PTS graduates, like those of other seminaries, leave school with burdensome debt. Recent surveys provide disturbing evidence that educational debt is one of the factors contributing to the dropout rate from ministry, especially among younger clergy and church workers. Unlike graduates of other professional programs (such as law and medicine), seminary graduates are not “rewarded” for their educational attainment with larger salaries.

With a gift of $12,500, a donor--whether an individual, a congregation, or a family--could create a new named scholarship. Read more.