I would RUN away from a church like this. It is incredible to me that some distant hierarchy can choose who your teachers/preachers, etc are. Are they now Catholic?

I’ll have about 30K at the end of four years (I’ll take an extra semester or two,) And will get through some grad school before I hit the 50K level.

And I’ll have an actual BS in Biology and perhaps even a MS by that time.

And marketable skills with which I can pay off my Stafford loans.

One person I know claims that maybe the students were once younger but are now older in age.

I guess that would depend on the ages of the pastors of the churches that they are taking over…opps, I mean, “planting”. Or if they have upcoming SGM princes that need their own space. Years ago, the ones I knew that went to PC were all out of their 20s and married and didn’t have all little kids.

It’s really more like any big company’s internal training division – i.e. GE has Six Sigma school (but, unlike PC, those skills can be used elsewhere) or a fast food chain’s “management training program”

I would certainly be concerned if most of the pastoral candidates don’t have at least a bachelor’s degree (and the experience and maturity that brings) before attending what they call “pastor’s college.” After all what they call “college” would be more suited for providing specialized training to someone who already has a college degree vs. being a college that offers more depth of learning.

One person I know claims that maybe the students were once younger but are now older in age.

The living costs of the area where the college is in might explain the high cost and if they still had to make payments on their existing home where they come from. Also, it might be one drawback to having more mature men go to PC; they typically have families they have to support vs. younger men are more likely to be single. If the students are single men you could house a number of them in one of those townhouses you indicate they purchased vs. one per student (and the student’s family).

Thus this $50K cost for a PC student probably includes SGM Fees, living expenses, per diem, and even a salary.

Being the group is non profit and thus tax exempt, I doubt they need the tax break you mention or that would do them any good. I would imagine SGM is exempt from having to pay property taxes on these residences.

The cost of living in Montgomery County is very high. Anyone on this blog who lives there can attest to that. Also, they bring their entire family, lose their salary from their previous job and many of them don’t sell the home they’re moving out of for those 10 months.

Median income in 2006 for Gaithersburg was $68,000. So, though tuition might be way more that what it gives you in the end, I don’t think it’s all that high (in the early 2000s, it was $5000 according to the PC family we housed.) But, to live on $50,000 a year minus tuition, would be a big stretch for any family. Plus, the fact that they usually maintain their prior home.

Not that I’m trying to defend SGM. I think paying anything for their own “college” that pigeon-holes people into SGM and only SGM is silly to say the least. But, I think we can waste a whole lot of time on this thing that really doesn’t matter.

Maybe some of those guys should spend that 50k getting a bachelors degree so that when they get fired at the whim of Steve Shank, they can find a job.

This was referring to the cost of sending a person to the pastor’s college.

That certainly sounds like a high figure. I would certainly like to see how SGM comes up with that cost to charge local SGM churches for candidates going to their school. This high cost IMO imposes another large cost on associated churches by Sovereign Grace Ministries.

As others have said, the yearly cost of graduate school is usually less than this.

9 months education

50K

having a 50K education that is worthless anywhere outside of SGM

priceless