The Challenge

Higher education is facing strong headwinds in 2021 and they will only grow stronger over the next half decade. Fortunately, Calvin has been preparing for this storm for almost a decade through financial stewardship and strategic investments. It has been positioning itself to not be blown around by the winds, but to be primed for strategic transformation.

Shoring up the foundation

In 2012, WICHE, an organization that tracks high school demographic data, published a sobering report for higher education. In short, it showed severe declines in the number of expected high school graduates in the 2020s, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. The state of Michigan’s decline was even more striking. Recognizing this, Calvin got to work on a strategic plan that would strengthen, support, and secure the institution.

From 2014 to 2019, Calvin strengthened its financial position, improved student retention and career readiness, increased the endowment, reduced the amount of debt per student, renovated spaces on campus, significantly reduced the university’s long-term debt thanks in part to an unprecedented $25 million debt relief campaign, and increased salaries and wages of faculty and staff to match the market.

This strengthening of Calvin’s foundation prepared it to encounter the impending demographic decline and primed it to create a compelling vision for the institution.

Calvin College would become Calvin University. It would deepen its commitment to the Reformed Christian Faith, open up more pathways for learners of all ages and backgrounds, and grow as a trusted partner and as a global influencer.

Just months after the vision was cast, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, shifting planning efforts from their long-term focus into crisis mode, pausing or slowing some of the institution’s initiatives.

The successes

Despite the challenging terrain of the past decade generally, and the past 20-month pandemic specifically, the university has experienced much momentum toward Vision 2030.

The institution has lived into a university structure that drives growth and sustains excellence. To date, the university has received two transformational gifts to establish the School of Business and the School of Health and is seeking funding to further support additional schools.

The university also launched the Global Campus, including multiple new graduate-level programs, approved a new core curriculum that strengthens the university’s liberal arts identity, and received an $11 million gift—providing Calvin University the largest budget of any university worldwide to deepen its faculty’s ability to teach from a Christian perspective and expand its ability to shape Reformed Christian thought leadership around the world.

These successes allow Calvin to approach future planning from a position of strength.