# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S898
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

200 . SEMINARIES ‘AND: COLLEGES,

Exhibit. 6, page 201). The combination of having a central loca-
tion for this high school, the fact that the Fort Wayne Lutheran
high school is already on the very campus of the Concordia Col-
lege, and the fact that the college can make a dormitory and din-
ing room available for boarding students who would otherwise
be unable to get their high school training in a Lutheran high
school simply offers an ideal combination which can be duplicated
nowhere else in the Missouri Synod and which could not be created
elsewhere at anything but prohibitive cost.

IncREASED PRODUCTION

It should be noted also that the possibility of securing 50 addi-
tional ministerial graduates from one two-year college is a pro~
cedure which merits the most careful evaluation. If we were to
attempt to get this increase of production through a six-year pro-
gram, it would require a minimum of 350 additional students to
fill the six-year arrangement .and to ultimately produce the 50
additional graduates annually. At best, this process would involve
an. operating cost of at least $100,000. per year. The difference
appears dramatically when the problem is analyzed on the basis
of current costs:

If the cost of producing a graduate from the preparatory in-
stitutions is computed at $300 per student per year (actually the
average cost was higher last year), this would mean that the grad-
uates of the junior college would cost $600 per student instead of
$1,800 per student as at present. Under present circumstances the
average operating cost to Synod of the Fort Wayne institution
approximates $75,000 per year, 250 students being figured at $300
each, It will readily be seen that in six years this cost would total
$450,000 to produce approximately 210 graduates. Under a junior
college plan, if we could assume 200 students at a cost of $300 per
student, the annual operating cost would equal $60,000 and a total
for the six years would equal only $360,000 but would produce
about 500 graduates. If the product can be satisfactory, this @
arrangement would produce approximately 140% more graduates ,
for approximately. 20% lower cost. This is a gross saving. The
net would be less by the amount involved in the scholarships’
paid for Lutheran high school students and costs of any necessary
recruitment program. ‘

ADJUSTMENT WILL TAKE TIME
It should be remembered that it will take a minimum of five.
years to complete the necessary adjustments, Even if the full
program could begin in 1951 with the elimination of the freshman
high school class, it would be 1955 before the junior college were
set up without any high school classes, and it would be 1956 be-