When politicians run out of ways to spend other peoples money they begin to figure out ways to make things free. One of the folks calling for free tuition charged colleges $250000 to a half a million to come and speak at these centers of higher learning. Begging the question of what she could possible say that was worth that money is the question of why the schools didn’t cut tuition by that much or supply scholarships for that amount if they have that kind of money to throw around. Everyone knows that nothing is free and that somehow some one pays for everything.
The church is called upon to care for the poor and the needy, the sick and imprisoned and that is not an optional activity. Caring for her own however has never been an easy discussion in churches. There has always been a movement to care for church workers and the costs that they bear for education and most churches are generous especially with their sons and daughters who go into church work. There is talk at District level Boards as to how much Districts should support students and give them aid and one wag was heard saying that if a student in our system graduates “deeply in debt they should be investigated as to their fitness to be a teacher or a Pastor”. He went on to list the support from home congregations, District aid and grants, LWML support and grants, school aid and grants, and scholarships. His point was if a student took advantage of everything that churches, schools, Districts and LWML’s offered the average student would basically have “free tuition”.
Not having time to analyze all that I found this intriguing article from a year before I was born.
LET NOT THE CHURCH BE CHARGED
Under this heading Dr. H. Hamann, in the Australasian
Theological Review (Vol. XXI, No.4, December, 1950) discusses the question how much
the Church owes to students who prepare themselves for the pastoral or teaching
ministry. * The writer is not opposed to any support given to needy students. Nor
does he object to the principle of keeping the charges for board and other services
as low as possible. But he believes that it is not in keeping with the best
interests of the Church to transfer the “welfare state” 1dea to the student body at
its colleges. In particular, he is at variance with a proposal with which recently
the Toowoomba Convention of the Australian Church had to deal. According to this
memorial there was to be returned to theological students, upon graduation, all
money paid by them (or their parents) for board during the years of preparation. He
adds a word of praise for such parents as “count themselves happy in supplying
workers for their Church at some sacrifice to themselves” and stresses the thought
that whenever students or their parents are able to provide for the expenditure at
college, the Church should not offer assistance that is not needed.
We will get to the theological principles tomorrow.
