Abstract

Various factors must be considered in evaluating the cost of education. This study placed primary emphasis on the dropout factor in analyzing the cost of a special type of education, namely, the ministerial training program of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Since a sizable number of ministerial students discontinue before graduation, this study was an attempt, in the light of the Synod's position on ministerial training, to determine if the financial investment in the ministerial training which the dropouts received could be justified by commendatory observable attitudes and measureable activities subsequent to their discontinuance. A survey of the 120-year history of the Synod brought its position in reference to the cost of ministerial training into focus. The Synod has sought to provide a high type of ministerial training and has consistently regarded this,as an integral and essential part of its entire program. Therefore, its colleges and seminaries, engaged primarily in training the clergy, have been considered to have a valid claim to its financial support. Through the years the Synod has made a distinction in the distribution of the cost of the training to the ministerial students, the non-ministerial students, and the dropouts, Criteria for the empirical study of evaluating the dropout factor in the cost of the Synod's ministerial training program were established by soliciting the opinions of the chief elected officials of the Synod in reference to the attitudes and activities to be expected of the dropouts. These officials selected five significant areas of attitude and activity, in which the majority of them expected every ministerial dropout to excel at least sixty per cent of the membership of his respective church, if the financial support of the ministerial training received was to be considered justifiable...