I’ll say it: It’s not gonna last. Everyone knows historians make terrible prognosticators, but in this case I’m feeling pretty confident. A two-year old experiment in a new kind of evangelical college experience has only one slim chance of survival.

Sounds great. Won’t last.

The experiment at issue is CreatEd Institute in North Carolina. The new school hopes to offer conservative evangelical Protestants a new way to experience higher education. Instead of traditional classes and majors, CI has an 18-month cohort approach. All students progress together through core ideas, relying on something like a Great Books approach. After that time, students can move into a professional apprenticeship program in a field of their choosing.

Will it work? Its boosters promise the world. As the website explains,

What is Truth? What is beauty? What is society? Who is God? What does it mean to be fully human? Who am I? These are the questions students wrestle with, and find answers to, in the CreatEd Core.

Our 16-month, discussion-based program inspires students through an engaging study of the Great Books built upon the biblical narrative. We pair history’s most creative, insightful thinkers with the Truth of God’s Story. Rather than offering dozens of unrelated courses, the intentional sequenced curriculum of the CreatEd Core brings meaning to learning, igniting a passion in our students as they make connections between themselves, God’s Word, and His world.

By including a “Guild” program, CI hopes to be more than just a dream factory. CI insists it will prepare students better than traditional colleges for an authentic, successful Christian life and career.

CI faces big hurdles. It has not earned any accreditation and says it won’t try to. Its model only allows it to welcome small batches of students. The cost per student is accordingly high: $39,820 for the first two years, and more if students want to proceed into the apprenticeship program.

There is only one way a school like this will survive and thrive and the founders of CI don’t show any signs of recognizing it.

Think about it: How many tuition-paying students can an experimental school like this attract? It apparently hopes to appeal to the homeschool and “classical” evangelical school crowd. For families with the wherewithal to afford the CI program, though, there is way too much competition.

Consider, for a moment, what a CI student would be giving up. Without accreditation, none of the credits from a CI transcript will transfer. And without offering a bachelor’s degree program, graduates will invest time and money without any recognized professional credential.

Why would students choose such a thing?

In the variegated world of American higher ed, there is a long-standing precedent and model. Deep Springs College in California has a long history of offering a very similar program from a non-evangelical perspective. Students at Deep Springs go on a two-year intellectual journey. At the end, however, they often transfer to elite universities to complete their degrees.

How has Deep Springs thrived for a century? For one thing, it is free. Second, it is able to brag that its students are being prepared to trounce all competition in professional success. As they state prominently,

Alumni have gone on to become leaders in a number of fields, some receiving MacArthur Grants, Pulitzer Prizes, and Truman and Rhodes Scholarships. Today, Deep Springs is often cited as an example of the transformative experience that higher education can offer.

Unless CreatEd can pull off an evangelical version of Deep Springs, it is doomed. Unless, that is, the school can promise that its students will not suffer professionally for their experience, CI will go the route of so many other experiments in higher education: Big dreams and a quick expiration.