The founders of St. Athanasius had a vision to achieve accreditation one day. Several attempts were made in the 1980s and 1990s without success. We now return to accreditation as the next necessary step for the future of our college. We have begun the process of accreditation. Before this process, we could be described as a “mom-and-pop operation.” While this is efficient, we did not have the necessary structure to even begin the accreditation process. In other words, we had to make structural and personnel changes first.
On paper, accreditation does not seem that expensive. The process fees add up to about $10,000 a year for two years. However, the surprise costs come in the structural personnel changes. For example, the accreditation process is so demanding that we were forced to hire a full-time employee just for accreditation. His responsibility is to bring the other departments into accreditation compliance, which is more work (and more payroll) for those departments. The second significant change required was a full-time dean, the critical leadership office of a college in the accreditation process. The previous dean was part-time and also was the registrar for a total of $36,000 a year. The third personnel change was the addition of a part-time registrar at $18,000 a year. These three roles increased the staff payroll from $36,000 a year to $154,000, with the previous dean promoted to President to oversee all of St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology.
A budget of our annual accreditation budget is available below.
2024
- $70,000: full-time dean
- $48,000: full-time accreditation officer
- $18,000: part-time registrar
- $18,000: half of the president’s salary is allocated to the college and the other half to the homeschool academy
- $10,000: accreditation fees/classes/conferences
- $10,000: software/website upgrades
2024 expenses related to accreditation: $174,000
2025
- $70,000: full-time dean
- $48,000: full-time accreditation officer
- $18,000: part-time registrar
- $18,000: half of the president’s salary is allocated to the college and the other half to the homeschool academy
- $10,000: accreditation fees/classes/conferences
- $10,000: software/website upgrades
2025 expenses related to accreditation: $174,000
Does the college have income? Yes, we do, but it is limited because so few students are willing to take a risk on an unaccredited college. We average 25 students a semester. 60% of that income goes to the faculty. While our regular tuition rate is $425 per course, that is only for students in Arizona and Texas. Due to state regulations, we have “audit” students from all the other states at $350 per course. To maintain good relationships with our excellent faculty, we pay them 60% of the $425 as one of the expenses of accreditation. The net income for the college from tuition is about $1,750 per month. Our enrollment is slowly increasing each semester, so this is an estimate.
Through current and future marketing and advertising efforts, we believe enrollment can increase . Our budget estimates that we need 100 full-time students to support our staff and structure. We believe we can achieve 100 students by the end of 2026.
