Higher education
ELCA pastors Emily and Tim Leitzke clip coupons to stay within a tight weekly budget and make monthly payments on Emily’s nearly $60,000 student debt. The Leitzkes and other ELCA clergy share a common burden: crushing stu- dent debt that is difficult to pay off on a pastor’s salary.
Pastoral debt A
nswering the call to serve God’s people as a pastor, Emily Hol- lars Leitzke went right from
college to the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (Pa.), taking on nearly $60,000 in student loans. “I kind of rationalized it to myself
that when I had a call I would be making enough money to be able to pay those loans back,” she said. Reality struck after her ordina- tion in 2007 when the loan payments totaled nearly $1,000 a month under a 10-year payback schedule. On top of living expenses, it was too much. “It took every last red cent of my
income to pay everything but the loans,” said Leitzke, whose husband, Tim, was a pastor awaiting call (he is now in graduate school). Leitzke’s predicament is com- mon. Crushing seminary debt limits the choice of calls for the newly ordained, as well as the choice of pastors for smaller congregations. It places a financial millstone around
Blezard is pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Arendtsville, Pa., and author of The Lutheran’s study guides.
42 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
grant from the Lilly Foundation, the church is coordinating a pioneering strategy, Stewards of Abundance, to reduce seminarian debt.
ELCA rallies to help reduce student debt for leaders By Robert C. Blezard
the necks of pastors for years. Church officials fear cost may deter many qualified candidates.
The standard route for pastors is a four-year (three years of seminary tuition, plus one year of internship) master of divinity degree from one of eight ELCA seminaries. Tuition averages about $12,000 a year, and living expenses can bring the total cost above $100,000, according to the ELCA Fund for Leaders, an endowed seminary scholarship pro- gram (see page 43).
About 80 percent of ELCA semi- narians take out student loans, said Jonathan Strandjord, director for seminaries with ELCA Congrega- tional and Synodical Mission. In 2009, the average ELCA seminary graduate had $36,909 in student debt, he said, way above the $30,000 “threshold of concern.” In other words, such a debt will be difficult for a pastor to pay off. The ELCA is mobilizing to help
at every level: churchwide, synods, congregations, seminaries and affili- ated agencies. Thanks to a $1 million
“Nobody wants pastors going out of the ELCA seminaries saddled with debt to the degree that it gets in the way of doing the ministry God has called them to do,” said Chick Lane, director of the Center for Stewardship Leaders at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minn., where the average graduate in 2009 had educational debt of $37,460. “There’s a lot of angst around this place about the level of student debt.” In 2007, Luther developed a
coaching program to help seminar- ians manage finances, avoid debt and become better stewardship leaders in their ministries. Students meet regu- larly with a volunteer finance coach to review the basics of budgeting, borrowing, interest and cash flow. Financial coaching helped clergy
couple Dane and Ingrid Skilbred, 2009 Luther graduates, who together have $90,000 in student debt, with $700 monthly loan payments. The couple also received help from the Northwestern Minnesota Synod, one of many with a debt-relief program. Two years after graduation,
they’re still using the notes and spreadsheet they worked out with their coach, Bill Roos, an accountant for H&R Block. “Financial coach- ing [helped us] completely face our debt,” Ingrid Skilbred said.
Working together Luther’s coaching model expanded to other ELCA seminaries thanks to
LISA HELFERT
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