Grace College and it’s new cost-savings program is in the news this morning. The Fort Wayne, Ind., Journal Gazette has featured the school following it’s announcement of a tuition reduction for incoming students, free textbook rentals, and other steps to reduce the costs of a Christian college education. A portion of the story appears below. Click here to read the complete article.
Grace gets innovative to recruit students
Trims tuition, offers 3-year course plan
Kristen Bellinger, an 18-year-old senior from Columbus, Indiana, wasn’t sure where she wanted to go to school before she visited the campus of Grace College in Winona Lake.
“From the moment she stepped on that campus, she fell in love,” her mother, Karlyn, said. “The coach had made arrangements to practice. She stepped on the field and when she came back, she said ‘Mom, they prayed before they started.’ She felt so at home. The girls were so welcoming.”
A serious soccer player, Kristen was torn between the promises of club soccer and her Christian upbringing at First Christian Church in her hometown, her mother said, and was wary of what a Christian school was like.
“Academically she’s a 4-something (high school GPA). She’s played travel (a higher level of soccer play). Her team won state championships several times. She played in Germany. She’s got lots of opportunities,” her mother explained.
But the spiritual qualities led her to choose Grace. What happened next sealed the deal.
Grace College will reduce its tuition by 9 percent for incoming freshmen starting in 2015, the same year Bellinger plans to enroll. That means that the Bellingers, along with all the other parents of freshman students, will get a bill for $22,450 for the two semesters, $1,520 lower than the bill this fall’s students and parents received at $23,970.
Thereafter, each student’s yearly tuition will decrease by multiples of $500; $500 for the first year, $1,000 for the second and $1,500 for the third year for a total reward savings of $3,000.
And that’s not all, says Grace’s spokesman David Grout. Next fall, regardless of rank, there will be free textbook rentals kicking in, the cost averaging $1,200 a year.
For a four-year degree, the savings is $4,800.
