Support of Episcopal Seminarians
Financial Support
SIM has provided nearly $7 million in scholarship assistance to more than 4,800 students. Historically, the scholarships have been small, but as seminarian indebtedness has grown, the Society has recognized the need to provide greater scholarship support.
The average debt of all college graduates is more than $18,000. Three years of seminary will cost an additional $51,000 to $100,000 or more. According to a survey conducted in the spring of 2006 of all second-year students at 11 Episcopal seminaries, those with debt had an average debt load of $42,874 only halfway through their training. This represents educational, personal, and consumer (credit card) and auto loans but not mortgage debt.
The Society has launched Funding Future Leaders: A National Endowment for Episcopal Seminarians to raise $200 million between 2006 and 2026. The endowment income of $10 million will provide needs-based scholarship grants for seminarians. The purpose of the endowment is to ensure that seminarians will not add more educational debt while they are in seminary.
Pastoral Support
SIM shows an old-fashioned pastoral concern for candidates, a practice it established in its earliest days. Because the Society is not part of the authority structure of the ordination process, representatives from SIM are in a unique position to offer pastoral care when they visit with grant recipients during visits to seminary campuses twice a year. SIM also meets with the seminary deans and is in contact with diocesan bishops on relevant topics.
SIM provides financial planning resources to help candidates and those involved in their discernment process identify, confront and manage accumulated debt before the students enter seminary. A financial and retirement assessment tool, developed by the Church Pension Group with assistance of SIM, helps in this process.
The Society also offers advice and counsel to candidates during their senior year and upon their arrival at their first assignment on available strategies for enlisting the help of their employing parish in beginning to pay down accumulated debt.
Advocacy Support
Out of the interaction between the Society’s representatives and candidates, SIM has become an advocate for seminarians to groups within the Episcopal Church. The Society advocates for seminarians on such topics as health insurance and publishes and distributes a booklet for seniors, “The Transition from Seminary to…” with practical information and spiritual counsel for those beginning to fulfill their call to the Episcopal priesthood. The booklet is available for no charge from the SIM office. Seminarians have no dedicated advocate in the councils of the church, and they cannot advocate effectively for themselves without possibly affecting their future ministry.
SIM offers postulants and candidates:
