I am not quoting raw enrollment. I am quoting FTE (Full Time Equivalent) student numbers. The seminary receives funding according to FTE rates, not the raw number of full-time and part-time students.
Back in the early days of the Hemphill administration, Dr. Hemphill held a "brown bag" lunch for students to explain the upcoming changes in the fee structure for the coming semesters. I attended that meeting. Hemphill explained that they were going to boost the FTE numbers by raising the matriculation fees to such a level that it made it relatively expensive for students to attend part-time instead of full-time. The thinking was that part-time students needed to "get serious" about their education and set aside other responsibilities (like earning a living) and take a full load each semester. As a part-time student, I expressed to Dr. Hemphill that I did not have the luxury of not earning a living while going to school and that taking a full load would simply mean that I would make poor grades and not fully learn what I needed to learn. He suggested that my wife could take a job and support me while I was in seminary, but I had no wife to do so.
What was the result? I had to skip a semester to earn enough to go part time the following semester and it slowed down the pace of earning my degree even more, without doing much to help their FTE numbers. I knew some students who simply dropped out of seminary or transferred to the Brite Baptist Studies program at TCU or to the newly formed Truett Seminary in Waco. I think that was the primary cause of the dramatic losses during the Hemphill years.
