<p>lukesfan, a few thoughts.</p>
<p>You may not like some of the messages, but no need to mudsling. There’s nothing personal here. But your tactic seems all to common these days. Hate the message, can’t respond, shoot the messenger. Attempt to somehow disparage the person. Do what you will. You already have. I have to tell you, our pastor would chuckle at how you think you understand me. He’d probably also chuckle at your notion of “conservative Presbyterian” , at least in the shriveling Louisville-bound USA branch. Now, Associate, PCA, EPC …those are dramatically different than the mainstream that GCC claims as its heritage. As do many. But to then suggest, perhaps beyond [bold]The Laymen[/bold] subscribers, that PC USA is “conservative”. That’s pretty sad. There is a very distinctive reason why the USA is on the fast track to fossilization, millions departing the church …many for those other Presbyterian groups. Most of which by the way, might choose to debate if your G.Fox Quakerism is even Christianity. but that’s for another day. You may want to bone up on your theology anyway. No doubt many/most GCC theologians would agree. Lost souls in Oregon.</p>
<p>But back to the point. I’m a realist and have found, short of the biblical manna or JC’s feeding the 5K, here in our world, we get what we pay for. And not you, nor anyone else has been able to definitively tell readers how GCC keeps its tuition low absent of sorely diminishing quality.</p>
<p>Here’s what we know for sure:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>GCC has excellent, nearly exclusively white students, most from in and around W.PA. They are drawn from a sizeable pool of students who inversely reflect those admitted.</p></li>
<li><p>GCC has a very high student faculty ratio AND average class size.</p></li>
<li><p>Similarly, GCC faculty have a very high teaching load and student advising load. They must. Simply do the math.</p></li>
<li><p>While many proclaim them to be fair teachers, minimal researchers, and definitely believers, they are without any doubt marginal scholars in general. They are paid better than a decade ago, now have a modest, poor retirement plan but that is a vast improvement on history, in wich GCC profs and admin had NO retirement plan as recently as the early '80s. They still have no benefit of tenure, no matter whether WE think that is good or otherwise. Faculty think it’s very good, especially if they find the truth to be something that might be controversial to status quo.</p></li>
<li><p>Charter of the founders proclaims little or no endowment fund-raising and investment. It’s not allowed and GCC history reveals the college has been true to that. Not raising funds professionally until recent years.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>But what most claim, and rightly so, is that GCC puts out very fine, good grads. What else would be expected??? They start out with the very same.</p>
<p>So, my call is NOT to demean the GCC model, but rather to ask what it is. And I’d LOVE to get an answer from someone, anyone who can answer it honestly, candidly, openly. </p>
<p>But none do. So that lack of transparency suggests there are things that GCC leaders do not what the public to know, to understand, to realize. So be it. That is their privilege. </p>
<p>In which case, I’ll stick with the message that that really seems to fly in the face of Christian love, brotherhood, sharing. </p>
<p>And I’ll stick with the message that no thinking person ought to simply buy the pablum that many on this thread offer up for how it is GCC does it all on the cheap …without really being cheap. </p>
<p>You see, there is no magic here. Only an opaque desire to keep the consumer in the dark and buying the company line. Sadly, luke sees asking hard questions that chronically remain unanswered by GCC as cynicism. Think about it. Christ loved transparency, he MULTIMPLIED goodness rather than hoarding it, he told us to drink from the fountain where we’d never go thirsty. It does not appear that GCC practices any of these, upon close analysis.</p>
<p>btw, often the real reason the lukes of the world don’t ask any really hard questions? They cannot afford to know the truth. As Paul Newman’s character was admonished, “you gotta get your mind right, Lukesfan.” But you may not really want to know that GCC appears to be the “computer model” …good info in, good results out. Neither of which says much about what goes on in process, or why it costs …so little. If it smells cheap, it just might be.</p>