Top 10 Reasons why Lutheran students should attend a Lutheran College!

1. Extra Financial-Aid Available!

2. A Strong Sense of Values!

3. Greater Involvement in the Community and Churches!

4. Greater Sense of Community!

5. Excellent Career Preparation!

6. Strong Lutheran Student Movement!

7. High 4-year Graduation Rate!

8. Participation and Leadership in Extra-curricular Activities!

9. Smaller Classes where Professors do the Teaching!

10. Lutheran Campus Pastor

Extra Financial-Aid Available

When many students and parents look into the financial-aid aspect of attending a Lutheran college, they seem to feel overwhelmed with the cost factor. However, always remember the saying “You get what you pay for”! Fortunately, for Lutheran students, there are a few extra financial incentives to attending Newberry College.

Currently, Newberry College offers an institutional grant for Lutheran students as well as Endowed Congregational Scholarships that many Lutheran Congregations have established. In order to receive the Lutheran Grant or Congregational Scholarships, students need to speak with their own congregational pastor. Applications for these awards are available online at http://www.newberry.edu/financialaid/onlineforms.asp .

The Lutheran Scholarship is a $1000 scholarship available to students who are members of a Lutheran church. The application deadline for the Fall semester is July 1st and November 2nd for the Spring Semester. This scholarship is renewable every year.

Many churches and individuals have also set up scholarships for Lutheran students. These funds are available through an endowment, and are available depending on the endowment’s status.

A Strong Sense of Values

Newberry College does more than educate students to receive a degree or provide job skills. We prepare young people to live lives filled with purpose by offering an education that enriches not only the mind, but the body and spirit as well.

Newberry College also recognizes the values of academic freedom, intellectual dialog, and diversity of viewpoint. The Lutheran tradition also celebrates the concept of vocation, leading students to prepare for meaningful life experiences, occupations, and service to the world as well as to the church.

This emphasis, coupled with weekly chapel services, a full-time Lutheran campus pastor, a director of church relations, and a staff and faculty who take pride in their influence as Christian role models, all facilitate the moral, ethical and spiritual development of our student body.

Greater Involvement in the Community and Churches

Throughout the Lutheran college experience, students are not only given the opportunity to grow as an individual, but they are also given the opportunity to give something back to the community and the church. While at Newberry College, students are able to participate in a variety of community service events ranging from on-campus beautification days to mission trips all over the US. In the recent past, students and campus organizations have held can food drives, numerous fundraisers for different philanthropic organizations, raised thousands of dollars for the 2004 Tsunami relief efforts and even traveled to Florida to help hurricane victims. Students are also given the opportunity to participate and even lead weekly chapel services.

Lutheran college students are also more likely to give back to the community and the church once they have graduated. The chart below compares and contrasts community/church service participation between Lutheran college graduates and public university graduates.

Greater Sense of Community

Many students think that it’s easier to make friends at a big university, because there are so many more people to choose from. In fact, the opposite is true. A smaller campus environment, like Newberry, actually allows students to interact and meet more students through the classroom and a variety of activities. Not only are students able to make more friends, they are able to build stronger and closer relationships with those friends.

Lutheran college graduates are more likely to say they benefited from a sense of community and to say they made friends in class!

Strong Lutheran Student Movement

The Newberry College Lutheran Student Movement is a student-led campus ministry organization that is open to all members of the student community. It provides a forum for discussion and study and prayer to enable students to grow in faith and explore the difficult issues that they face as they integrate their faith and their academics. LSM also provides fellowship and a supportive group that encourages students to minister to each other under the guidance of the campus pastor. LSM further strives to provide students with leadership training so that they can become effective leaders at the local, regional and national levels.

LSM participates in the First Night Sunday evening services held twice each term and provides occasional leadership for the Tuesday morning community services and the Sunday afternoon nursing home worship services. LSM also participates in a variety of service and ministry projects, including the Safe Kids Halloween Project, Campus Beautification Days, Open House programs, and the spring and fall retreats. LSM is affiliated with the Gulf Atlantic Region of the Lutheran Student Movement and participates in their fall and spring retreats as well as the Annual Gathering of the National Lutheran Student Movement.

High 4-year Graduation Rate

Graduation and retention rates are important factors to consider when evaluating the price tag of a bachelor’s degree. U.S. Department of Education statistics reveal that almost half of all undergraduate students enroll at more than one institution. In the process of transferring, many lose credit for courses taken and therefore take longer to finish a degree.
But even those who stay at one institution often take more than four years to graduate. According to our survey, Lutheran college alumni were far more likely to have graduated in four years than those who attended flagship public universities. Adding a fifth or sixth year of tuition onto what looked like an affordable education significantly raises the price tag – especially when you factor in the "opportunity cost" of two years of lost earning power.

Excellent Career Preparation

The job market's ever-accelerating rate of technological, political, social and economic change calls for long-rather than short-term thinking. Today’s “hot” skill will almost certainly be tomorrow’s relic. To thrive throughout the twists and turns of the global economy, you need a set of broad-based abilities that will enable you to take advantage of a variety of professional challenges.

In today’s workforce, employers most value skills and traits such as: communication skills, motivation/initiative, teamwork skills, leadership skills and academic achievement. A liberal arts education, like that offered at Newberry College, is far from impractical: it helps students develop analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills, plus leadership and teamwork, that will last a lifetime.

The following survey asked graduates how effective was their college experience in helping them develop the following traits and skills.

Participation and Leadership in Extra-curricular Activities

Employers could care less that your football team won the Popcorn Bowl – and graduating magna cum whatever isn’t good enough on its own. Job recruiters look for leadership, teamwork skills, motivation and initiative – and you’re not going to pick those up snoozing in the back of the class. In order to gain these skills and traits, students can join and become a leader in a variety of clubs and organization.

At smaller Lutheran colleges like Newberry, where you’re not swimming through a sea of student bodies to get to the opportunities, it’s easier to join – or start – teams, performance groups and clubs, or create independent research projects in your chosen field, or take any class that intrigues you. And that’s what makes recruiters sit up and take notice.

At Newberry, there are over 50 clubs and organizations in which students can choose to participate. There is something for everyone! Students can be involved in Student Government, an honor society, religious and academic organizations, athletics, social sororities and fraternities, intramurals, produce a TV show, be a DJ on a radio show, and the list goes on and on! Not only are Newberry students able to participate in any of these organizations, they can participate in as many of them as they choose!

It is estimated that at least 60% of Newberry students participate in 2 or more clubs or organizations, and approximately 30% of Newberry students hold leadership positions within these organizations. Below is a chart comparing the percentage of participation in Extra-curricular activities of Lutheran college students and public university students.

For a list of all Newberry College clubs and organizations, please check out http://www.newberry.edu/studentaffairs/studentlife.asp !

Smaller Classes where Professors do the Teaching

In small classes, everyone participates; there’s no hiding in the back of the room because you haven’t read the assignment. At Newberry, you won’t be sitting in a huge auditorium, trying to pay attention while a graduate assistant teaches the 300 member class. Instead, you will:

• Be taught by professors, not graduate students.
• Take many small, discussion-oriented classes.
• Have a 13:1 Student/Teacher ratio.
• Have a greater level of personal interaction with your professors.
• Have professors who act as a mentor and a role model.

Students will be better prepared for the workforce by learning to analyze, argue and articulate within their classes. Also, working together in small groups, solving problems and communicating ideas, trains the students for the teamwork that will be required in the world of career and community.

Now, why is close contact with professors so important? A good teacher can help a student understand his or her own capabilities and strengths, and address academic challenges. When a professor knows a student well enough to write a thoughtful recommendation, that’s a practical, powerful benefit that strengthens the chances of landing that desired job or getting into a top med school or law school. Lutheran college graduates are much more likely to say that they benefited from small classes, and from personal interaction with professors.