Bethlehem College & Seminary
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Overview
Bethlehem College & Seminary is located in a large city with a population of more than 250,000. It is in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MN-WI area.
Highlights
Largest undergraduate program (15): Biblical Studies
Address
720 13th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55415
bcsmn.edu
Additional links
SOURCES:
Accreditation:
good
Institutional Control
Bethlehem College & Seminary is a private not-for-profit organization.
Denomination
Baptist
SOURCES:
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Accreditation
Accreditation provides important oversight over a school's instructional practices and institutional stability.
Bethlehem College & Seminary holds an accreditation from one of the national accreditors. Credits earned from the national accreditors are often not accepted by schools holding the more prestigious regional accreditation, and it's important to verify that your credits will transfer if you are considering an eventual switch to another school.
Accreditation History
Association for Biblical Higher Education, Commission on Accreditation (Accredited February 18, 2015 - present)
  • The accreditation was recently renewed on February 12, 2020.
  • The next accreditation review is scheduled for February 28, 2030.
Undergraduate Students
Not all students attend their first college full time to completion. While some schools are focused on those that population, many schools focus on transfer and or part time students. What types of of student does this school support.
Full-time first-time students
Full-time transfer students
Part-time first-time students
Part-time transfer students
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Admissions
SAT/ACT Scores
This table offers a hint of how high your test scores might need to be if you attend. For reference, a quarter of attending students earned lower, and a quarter earned higher.
SAT TestMiddle 50%
ERW620 to 700
Math560 to 650
 
ACT TestMiddle 50%
Math21 to 24
Composite21 to 26
SOURCES:
Context: Average High School GPA
Bethlehem College & Seminary did not report the average high school GPA of it's students.
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Admissions Details
Here are some important dates and little tidbits. Please double-check this information on the Bethlehem College & Seminary's webpage for the most up-to-date and accurate answers! We update this information with each school's annual reporting, but information can change unexpectedly. Select any item to view the details.
Admissions Criteria & Qualifications
Admissions Criteria & Qualifications
Application Fee & Common App
Application Fee & Common App
Bethlehem College & Seminary has an undergraduate application fee of $25. We did not find Bethlehem College & Seminary on the Common Application site. Keep in mind that it never hurts to inquire with an Admissions office to see whether they might be willing to waive your application fee.
Freshman application dates
Freshman application dates
The application deadline for fall admission to Bethlehem College & Seminary is July 1.
Credits accepted from new students
Credits accepted from new students
Bethlehem College & Seminary accepts the following credits:
  • Dual credit (college credit earned while in high school)
  • Advanced placement (AP) credits
Percentage of applicants who are accepted
A low percentage here can indicate that a school is highly selective. We think this is one of the least important numbers for you to consider.
Selectivity can be misleading
You may have heard that a high rejection rate is an indicator of a good school. However, this number can be gamed, and some schools started gaming the system to perform better in college ratings books and sites. Ididio believes a combination of good outcomes (e.g. successful graduation rates and loan repayments) along with indicators of a well-prepared student body (e.g. test scores and high school records) are the best indicators of a good academic experience for those who attend. Our advice is that you don't pay too much attention to this number as you decide whether you might be admitted.
84%94%0%20%40%60%80%100%WomenMen
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Percentage of accepted students who choose to attend
This is called the yield, and it suggests whether this was a first-choice school or a back-up school for most applicants. Even the most prestigious Ivy League schools lose about a third of their accepted students come enrollment time.
75%82%0%20%40%60%80%100%WomenMen
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Programs
Bethlehem College & Seminary program offerings
What award level are you pursuing?
Bachelor's Degree
Select a degree to see the details, or use the sankey below to explore the options.
Select a degree
Order degrees by.
Program Size (Completions)
Bethlehem College & SeminaryBiblical StudiesSpecialized Studies in Li...TheologyTop 10 matching degrees
Humanities
General/Interdisciplinary
Costs
Undergraduate costs
Here's a quick summary of costs to attend Bethlehem College & Seminary. You will find the most up-to-date information at their website for admissions.
View
All
Charge
Annual fees
Annual tuition
Estimated books and supplies
Miscellaneous (living off campus)
Miscellaneous (living on campus)
Miscellaneous (living with family)
Off-campus room and board
On-campus room and board
Per-credit charges
Cost
$40
$6,560
$500
$500
$500
$500
$5,000
$5,800
$205
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Net price: the best estimate for the cost to attend
Most schools publish tuition rates that give them room to offer both scholarships and financial aid where applicable. Your best estimate of what might pay is to see what others with similar family incomes have paid. A more tailored and accurate estimate is available at this school's net price calculator.
Understanding net price

With their net price calculators, many colleges and universities give an idea of what merit-based aid might accompany need-based aid. For schools that share such data, we also provide financial aid data in the Finanical Aid sections.

There are some caveats to consider when using the net price estimates:

  • The net price calculation is weighted by this school's proportion of students living on- and off-campus and this school's estimate of off-campus costs, which may cause the net price methodology be a bit inconsistent from school to school.
  • Parental income and student financial aid eligibility is sometimes more complicated than the simple family income number reported here.
  • The net price calculation for all students is inclusive of students who received any institutional or government aid, but at the family income levels the net price only considers the tuition paid by those who qualified for federal aid.

You can get a little better guess at what you would pay by using this school's net price calculator.

Percentage of students receiving any aid
The donut, based on 25 full-time first-time degree seeking students at Bethlehem College & Seminary, shows the percentage of those who received any financial aid (including merit-based scholarships), subdivided by family income.
0%
Aid type and family income
Federal: $0-30K
Federal: $30K-48K
Federal: $48K-75K
Federal: $75K-110K
Federal: Above $110K
Only institutional
Net price by family income
All Incomes
Let's look over the past few years at what freshmen who received any financial aid actually paid for tuition, fees, books, and living expenses on average, and how that compares to the tuition usually paid for other private universities in your context group. Public universities only report net price for in-state students.
201620172018$0$10,000$20,000$30,000$40,000$50,000
Chart explanation
Bethlehem College & Seminary
On the blue curve, we see how the net annual cost to attend Bethlehem College & Seminary has changed over the years.
Context Schools
The shading shows the spread of the net price for the context schools. The dark shading shows the middle 50% of context schools, and the light shading shows all but the smallest and largest 10%.
Customize your context group using the gear at the top of the page!
Find your net price estimate: bcsmn.edu...
Not so much?
Historic Annual Costs
See how this school's published costs have changed over the years, and how their cost trends compare with other private schools.
Published costs may have little to do with what you actually pay

It's important to remember that a school's published costs may not be indicative of what it will actually cost to attend. Time magazine wrote about this in their article Yes, you can get a college to cut its tuition price. Nonetheless, this inflation-adjusted look at the historic annual costs for tuition, fees, books, and supplies can give you an idea of the costs you might expect in the coming years. Comparing the total costs inclusive of room and board (if applicable) with the annual net price estimates in the previous tab will help you determine the financial aid package to expect.

Private and public universities' charges are difficult to compare due to the in-state and out-of-state price differences of public universities, and therefore we only compare Bethlehem College & Seminary to other private schools within your chosen context group.

Include room and board
Undergraduate tuition, fees, books, and supplies over time
20152016201720182019$0$20,000$40,000$60,000$80,000
Chart explanation
Bethlehem College & Seminary
On the blue curve, we see how the published annual cost to attend Bethlehem College & Seminary has changed over the years.
Context Schools
The shading shows the spread of the annual cost for the context schools. The dark shading shows the middle 50% of context schools, and the light shading shows all but the smallest and largest 10%.
Customize your context group using the gear at the top of the page!
Financial Aid
Financial aid overview

Understanding the rules and process that determine who gets financial aid can be intimidating. Here are some quick links to help:

  • Visit Bethlehem College & Seminary's Net Price Calculator for the most accurate estimate of your anticipated costs. Every school publishes a Net Price Calculator that does its best to give you a fair estimate of what you might expect to pay. Many calculators consider your high school record as part of the calculation. This will be far more accurate than any of the averages or published tuition values that you see here.
  • FederalStudentAid, a government site that will walk you through the federal financial aid process. There are a number of kinds of student loans and other aid, and this site can walk you through all of the choices you will need to make.

Undergraduate Outcomes
Graduation Rate
All of the undergraduate students were full-time and were attending college for the first time. These students had an 8-year graduation rate of about 91% of.
91%
Time to complete
4 years
6 years
8 years
Context: Graduation rate
These numbers reflect eight-year graduation rates for all degrees earned by full-time students who began as first-time freshmen at the colleges and universities in your chosen context group.
SOURCES:
Fewer details
Are students graduating on time?
Let us tell you all about low graduation rates!

Across the country, graduation rates are surprisingly low. In fact, Forbes Magazine suggests that they are unacceptably low. However, from another point of view, sometimes graduation rates simply reflect the relative preparation of the students who enter. Colleges with a mission to help people coming from less advantaged backgrounds, such as first-generation and low-income students, may have low graduation rates despite relatively strong outcomes for students who face many obstacles to success. Without the context provided in these views of completion rates, it can be tricky to separate predatory schools that take financial advantage of under-prepared students from those that are actively seeking to encourage and help those students.

For the consumer choosing a school, once you have narrowed your list to those schools that you can afford and that seem likely to admit you, consider the outcome measures in this section and choose the specific measures that best describe your plans. Very simply, schools with high graduation rates and high loan repayment rates will likely give you the best opportunity to succeed.

Context: the impact of wealth and transfer status on degree completion
We took a close look lagging success for students with financial need in a case study. Here's a chance to compare schools based on student successes with a better appreciation of how circumstances may impact success. One word of caution: the statistics for some categories may consist of only a handful of students -- see the details by hovering or long-pressing on the bars.
Full-time first-time students
Full-time transfer students
Part-time first-time students
Part-time transfer students
Choose a student group
Full-time first-time students
Years after enrolling.
4
6
8
Full-time first-time students who received an award within 8 years after enrolling
91%0%50%100%Non-Pell
Context and trends: Repayment Rate
How much progress do you think you'll be able to make towards paying down your college loans seven years after leaving school? In our research, we discovered that a surprisingly large number of students don't default on their loans, but also aren't making progress in paying down their principal amount. The percentages here count alumni who have decreased their loan amounts by at least $1.
Context and trends: are the loan default rates as small as possible?
The default rate is the percentage of students who are already delinquent on their loans within three years of leaving the school. If a school has a high default rate, that sends an alarm out that the students' educations are not sufficient to earn enough to repay those loans. Read below for details on the typical loan burden, and keep in mind that a low default rate may be more important than loan amounts in predicting your future success.
Loan burden
At Bethlehem College & Seminary, 0% of full-time degree-seeking freshmen receive federal student loans. We have much more details about the full loan burden students experience in our Cost and Financial Aid Section.
Context: Percentage of freshmen with federal loans
0%0%20%40%60%80%100%
Not so much?
Classroom Experience
Student attention at Bethlehem College & Seminary
Schools are required to report the ratio of students per instructor, but look for a small number of students for every full-time instructor as your best indicator of personal attention and a modern well-integrated curriculum.
13.19010203040Full-time inst.Any inst.
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Quality and Quantity of Bethlehem College & Seminary faculty
Faculty are the heart of a school. Make sure the school you attend has highly-qualified faculty who are regularly in their offices and happy to meet with you.
Full-time faculty overview
The best bachelor’s and graduate programs are generally taught by long-term faculty with tenure, as these instructors typically hold the highest degree possible in their field of expertise. Their commitment to research, their students, and to the school itself should be outstanding. The more green in the chart, the more long-term faculty are available to offer you steady classroom quality.
Learn more about the bars in this chart

Traditionally, the long-term faculty at a school are hired as Assistant Professors. After about six years, they then advance to the Associate Professor level after proving excellence in three areas: teaching, service to the institution, and significant contributions to their field of expertise. Assistant professors who are not promoted to the Associate level are usually required to leave the school. The rank of Professor is reserved for senior faculty who have demonstrated the highest standing in those three areas. The standards of excellence differ widely across institutions; nonetheless, the presence of a large proportion of faculty in the three professor ranks suggests you will be taught by faculty who are invested in their academic fields and in the school. Generally, instructors with any of the three professor titles will hold the highest possible (terminal) degree in their academic fields.

The instructor/lecturer positions are generally held by full-time faculty who are focused on teaching alone, often for lower-level classes. These positions usually require some advanced education or experience, but not the highest (terminal) degree in a given academic field. Those teaching with no academic rank may be hired to teach in mostly non-academic fields, giving skills- or vocation-based guidance.

02468InstructorAssistant ProfessorAssociate ProfessorProfessor
Not Faculty
Faculty, not tenure-track: sub-annual
Faculty, not tenure-track: annual
Faculty, not tenure-track: multi-year or indefinite
Faculty, tenure-track
Faculty, tenured
Context: Percentage of full-time faculty
Full-time faculty are mostly likely to be on campus and available for interaction, and most likely to craft up-to-date courses and programs. Bethlehem College & Seminary performs better in this measure than 61% of the context schools.
Read more about why you want mostly full-time faculty teaching you
65%0%20%40%60%80%100%
Not so much?
Faculty Diversity
Here's an opportunity to explore the faculty's diversity. For many schools, attracting a diverse teaching faculty can be a challenge. It's important to judge their success with the reality check of what their peer schools have accomplished.
An overview of faculty race and gender
Here the bars show faculty rank, with male faculty to the left and female faculty to the right. The race/origin of faculty are shown by color. The view with rank is important because many of our elite schools have a problem with diversity at the higher faculty ranks. Are women and minorities being promoted at Bethlehem College & Seminary?
InstructorAssistant ProfessorAssociate ProfessorProfessor02468Men02468Women
White
Multiracial
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Housing
No Student Housing Available
This school does not report any housing for students.
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Activities and Services
Special academic opportunities
  • Weekend college
Research
The library is the backbone of academic learning and research

A rigorous academic program requires that students and faculty alike are engaging in independent research, and that activity requires strong library support. You can get some useful information here:

  • How strong and how balanced between traditional physical books and easily-accessed (but expensive) electronic journals and other resources is this library?
  • How much is this library borrowing from other libraries? The number of interlibrary loans received can indicate the school's commitment to getting the resources on-campus researchers need, and also of the research activity on campus.
  • How big a resource is this library to other libraries? A large number of outgoing interlibrary loans speaks highly of the value of its content.

The presence of a library in and of itself is a good thing. Increasingly, libraries are comfortable and inviting spaces for individual and group study sessions. Librarians can be incredibly friendly guides in your quest to find materials that aid your learning.

Comparison of library resources per student
How do the per-student library resources at Bethlehem College & Seminary compare to other schools?
4698502004006008001,000PhysicalElectronic
Comparison of library loans per student
A small library could make up for a small collection by allowing a large number of interlibrary loans to be received. An excellent library can show its strength by its number of loans given.
0.000.000.001.002.003.00LoanedReceived
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Research funding: the best indicator of post-baccalaureate academic rigor
Any school that reports at least $150,000 in research and development expenditures in a given year should have submitted out the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey to the National Science Foundation (NSF). We did not find HERD data for $Bethlehem College & Seminary, so there would at most modest graduate-level academic scholarship campus-wide.
Student Body
Undergraduate Study Types
About 80% of undergraduate students are full-time. No undergraduate students take distance education courses.
Undergraduate Full-time
80%
Undergraduate Online classes
0%
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Context: Student body size
Bethlehem College & Seminary enrolled 219 students over the past academic year. The the student body size is smaller than 95% of the context schools.
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Undergraduate student gender
Is the gender balance of Bethlehem College & Seminary undergraduate students important to you? You can see the breakdown in this donut chart.
Gender
Men
Women
SOURCES:
Undergraduate student race/origin
Bethlehem College & Seminary reports that 5% of undergraduate students are minority, which is less than 99% of the context schools. This school's 0.9% of international students is near the middle proportion of international students within the context schools.
Race/Origin
White
Hispanic
Asian
American Indian
International
SOURCES:
Fewer details
Context: Gender Balance
It is very difficult for many types of schools to achieve a gender balance, and this context is valuable in evaluating the balance at Bethlehem College & Seminary.
62%39%20%40%60%80%MenWomen
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Context: Percentage of women
With 39% women undergraduate students, Bethlehem College & Seminary has a lower percentage of women than 93% of context schools.
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Context: Undergraduate student race/origin
Here is how Bethlehem College & Seminary compares to the rest of the context group in terms of diversity in the student race and origin.
94%2%2%2%1%0%20%40%60%80%100%BlackPacific IslanderMultiracialNot ReportedInternationalHispanicAsianAmerican IndianWhite
Freshman residences

A high proportion of international and out-of-state students speaks to reputation and offers an opportunity for diverse interactions in and out of class.

Freshman residence
In-state
Out-of-state
International
Not Reported
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Undergraduate student age distribution
The age distribution at a school can tell you a lot about its mission. If you're looking for a traditional undergraduate experience, you may prefer to see students who are mostly younger than 25 (lighter shades), but if you want support as a returning student, a large number of students 25 and older (darker shades) may better suit your needs.
Age range
Under 18
18-19
20-21
22-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-49
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School Finances
Bethlehem College & Seminary: What its budget can tell you about classroom quality
Where a school spends and collects its money can suggest a lot about the educational experience it offers. The tabs below offer a look at spending that is important for the quality of your experience if you attend.
Instructional spending
Student services spending
Context and trends: Instructional expenditures per student
Instructional expenses are primarily the salary and benefits paid to the heart of a school: its full-time instructors. High expenditures in this area suggest care in hiring enough highly qualified full-time faculty to provide personal attention and up-to-date subject-area excellence.
2015201620172018$0$5,000$10,000$15,000$20,000$25,000
Chart explanation
Bethlehem College & Seminary
On the blue curve, we see how the instructional expenses per student at Bethlehem College & Seminary have changed over the years.
Context Schools
The shading shows the spread of the instructional expenses per student for the context schools. The dark shading shows the middle 50% of context schools, and the light shading shows all but the smallest and largest 10%.
All values have been adjusted for inflation. Customize your context group using the gear at the top of the page!
Fewer details
Does incoming revenue consistently cover expenses?

Bethlehem College & Seminary is a private not-for-profit school. Along with publicly-controlled schools, not-for-profit schools do not have the goal of annual profit, but they do want to have healthy finances with adequate revenue to meet all expenses. On the other hand, private for-profit schools have creating a profit for shareholders as an annual goal.

Total revenue and expenses by category
We divided revenue and expenses for Bethlehem College & Seminary into categories to give some insight to what may have influenced peaks and ditches in the chart above. The purple shades correspond most directly to student education. The blue shades, auxiliary expenses and revenue, are often related to room and board. We show investment gains and losses in apricot.
2015201620172018$0$2M$4M$6MRevenue$0$2M$4M$6MExpense
Investment gains
Auxiliary revenue
Tuition and fees revenue
Private and capital gifts
Educational sales revenue
Other revenue
Investment losses
Auxilliary expenses
Instructional expenses
Student services expenses
Academic support expenses
Institutional support expenses
Other expenses
Not so much?
The power of a large endowment
Related to the previous question of whether the annual revenue stream is stable is the question, "How deep are this school's pockets?" For many schools, a major source of annual income is investment growth. Schools with large endowments have a built-in revenue stream, although you'll see in the accompanying graphs that this revenue stream is highly dependent on the nation's economy. You can choose how to examine the depth of Bethlehem College & Seminary's resources by selecting from the buttons below.
Choose asset category
Net Assets
Total Endowment
Endowment Growth Rate
Net Assets Per Student

Here we examine assets at Bethlehem College & Seminary in context, and it seems most fair to adjust for the size of the institution. We examine the assets per full-time-equivalent student so that we level the playing field for size.

There's a catch to these assets, though. Many gifts to a school's endowment have strings attached; the money is restricted to a specific purpose. Assets shown in green below are unrestricted, and are very important to a school's ability to meet its financial obligations. Some assets are the land and buildings that a school must have in order to function, and these may appear as green (unrestricted assets) but are nonetheless less helpful in meeting annual financial commitments. This look at assets is only a piece of the puzzle as we decide if a school is stable.

$0$5,000$10,000$15,000$20,000200720082009201020112012201320142015201620172018
Restricted net assets
Unrestricted net assets
Context: 2019 net assets per student
$17,590$0$100,000$200,000$300,000