According to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, the nation's largest umbrella organization for evangelical undergraduate institutions, U.S. enrollment at its schools climbed 26.6% from 1997 to 2002, to 215,593.
Perhaps nowhere is the growth in evangelical schools more dramatic than in Southern California. Azusa Pacific University in the San Gabriel Valley, with 8,200 students, is the second-largest of the council's schools. Biola University of La Mirada, with an enrollment of 5,300, appears to have moved up to fourth-largest this fall.
Current students and recent graduates often say they were attracted by the schools' blend of religious and ethical values with scholarship. They also appreciated the opportunities for close relationships with professors.
Melissa Durkee, a 25-year-old Westmont graduate now in her third year at Yale Law School, said her alma mater had "a culture that encouraged professors to play a mentoring role and really have a deep presence in their students' lives. It wasn't a sterile, removed, academic distance."
Another attraction is the price. A council survey found that tuition averages $14,730, nearly $5,000 less than the norm for U.S. private colleges and universities, without considering scholarships.
But many academics remain concerned that the schools bend their instruction to conform with religious doctrine, stifling intellectual inquiry. They note that the colleges commonly require faculty members to make faith pledges attesting to their Christian religious beliefs and refuse to hire homosexuals.
"Sex and science are difficult issues for them to deal with in terms of mainstream educational thought," said Martin D. Snyder, director of planning and development for the American Assn. of University Professors.
Evangelical Christianity eludes easy definition, but generally it emphasizes a personal relationship with Christ, "born-again" religious conversions, the central importance of Scripture and a need to spread the Gospel.
The evangelical schools are a varied group, usually affiliated with Protestant churches, denominations or movements that are conservative theologically and, often, politically.
Most were established between the mid-19th century and the mid-20th century, often by believers who objected to the secularization of American society.
