The recent Atra report “From Calling to Career: Mapping the Current State and Future of Rabbinic Leadership” challenges us to reimagine the future of the rabbinate and rabbinical seminaries. The ensuing responses have grappled with numerous issues that emerge from this study — increasing LGBTQ+ demographics, the need for relevance, the overshadowing of cantors and the need for quality of preparation over quantity of students — but many of the recent assessments sidestep the most glaring deterrent to rabbinical education highlighted by the Atra report: cost. Many ordination students simply cannot afford to become clergy. 

The Atra report emphasizes that “a majority of students (62%), half of would-bes (49%) and one quarter of rabbis (25%) were strongly deterred by concerns about the cost of rabbinical school, and this was the strongest of the deterrents, overall. In line with the survey findings, this was also the most common deterrent mentioned by interviewees. Tuition costs are high, scholarships are limited…” Of all the findings of the study, this observation rings truest. We regularly encounter amazing prospective students who are heartbroken to realize they cannot fulfill their calling to serve the Jewish people simply because they cannot afford the necessary education.

At the Academy for Jewish Religion, we have done what we can to address this crisis. AJR has moved against the tide of inflation, only increasing our tuition by 2.5% in the past five years while most other Jewish seminaries have increased their tuition by 10-15%. But that is not enough. Although we have increased both the number and monetary amounts of scholarships that we offer, it is simply insufficient to meet the growing demand. And, as the Atra report reveals, we are not alone. Across the board, students — and, equally important, those “would-bes” — have sounded the alarm: If we want to invest in the future of Jewish communities and their leadership, we need to financially support the training of the next generation of leaders.

Beyond high price tags and limited scholarships, changes to government lending programs exacerbate the crisis. The recently imposed limits on federal borrowing and the elimination of the Grad PLUS loans mean that students will not have funds readily available to cover the costs of their education, nor to pay for living expenses. Especially for students who already borrowed federal funds for their undergraduate studies and those who rely on PLUS loans to cover living expenses while studying, this change will have dramatic consequences.

Only a few years ago the possibility for student loan forgiveness was expanded to include clergy. But the pendulum has swung in the other direction with concerns that loan forgiveness may disappear entirely. Pivoting from a prospect of financial forgiveness to a realization that hefty loans will need to be repaid compounds the cost calculus for those considering the rabbinate.

We cannot ignore what the Atra report, ordained clergy, students and the rabbinical seminaries have signaled as the most pressing problem facing those seeking to become rabbis and cantors. The report does point to a number of additional deterrents — time, relocation, career viability and more — and while they certainly should not be ignored, they can’t overshadow the paramount importance of making Jewish clergy education more affordable. Many of these areas, as well as the other deterrents not mentioned by the Atra report, are already being addressed and have been for years. The main issue that demands our attention now is cost. What we need is a different model — and there’s already one out there.

A different model

In the non-Orthodox world students typically pay tuition to study; but in the Orthodox world, seminaries typically cover the costs of tuition and provide a living stipend for ordination students. The two Modern Orthodox institutions included in the Atra report — Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and Yeshivat Maharat — both cover the costs of tuition and provide living stipends for their ordination students, incentivizing full-time study. (Hadar, which is not Orthodox, does this as well.)

This model is not limited to the seminary world. It is a pillar of major doctoral programs in higher education; while not every program offers stipends to all students, top-tier institutions only accept students they can fully fund. When I pursued my doctorate in Jewish studies at NYU, a MacCracken Graduate Fellowship covered all of my program costs and provided a generous living stipend. In many ways, PhD programs are comparable to Jewish clergy education, and the parallels reinforce the need for stipends in the seminary world. 

Many PhD students spend five to seven years in their programs, just as a majority of rabbinical programs can be completed in five years of full-time study. Most doctoral degrees require comprehensive exams. While this is also common in Modern Orthodox program like YCT and Yeshivat Maharat, to the best of my knowledge, AJR and Hadar’s Advanced Kollel are the only non-Orthodox programs in America that also have comprehensive exams (although our four exams are not as detailed as the exams typical of doctoral programs). A number of rabbinical programs require students to earn a master’s degree as part of their ordination program, and this degree often requires a thesis. Although these master’s level projects are not as intense as doctoral dissertations, students often spend a year engaged in their thesis work. Structurally, then, ordination programs are not so distinct from PhD programs. If the norm for major universities is to cover costs and provide living stipends for at least some of their students, a model already embraced for years within the Orthodox world, then we should strive to achieve the same in the non-Orthodox seminary world for all of our ordination students.

There are certainly challenges. Doctoral programs and some Orthodox seminaries have fewer students, so less funds are necessary to provide stipends. Then again, when ordination students do not need to relocate and can complete their programs while working, as is the case at AJR, they do not need the same level of living stipends. Even being paid $1000 per course instead of needing to pay for each class would turn the biggest challenge facing clergy students into a tempting incentive. The Orthodox world prioritizes Torah education very differently from the non-Orthodox world, and those in the Orthodox community follow through financially. Outside the Orthodox world, ordination is too often viewed as a degree like others rather than part of an essential calling to serve that directly contributes back to the community. To move towards a model of stipends rather than tuition, we may need a cultural shift in the liberal Jewish community to prioritize investing in training our religious leadership.

We must change the model from asking how we can make clergy education affordable to asking how we can monetarily incentivize qualified students to heed their calling to serve the Jewish community – especially in this moment of polarization, rising antisemitism and rapid change. AJR currently has over 100 students across our programs, and other non-denominational schools like Hebrew College have also been increasing enrollment, but we know rabbinical seminaries could be training so many more future clergy if we could cover tuition and provide stipends. The Jewish philanthropic community can make this a reality. It is time we embrace this different path before even more talented leaders end up as would-be clergy instead of serving as the rabbis and cantors we so desperately need. 

Rabbi Matthew Goldstone is the assistant academic dean and associate professor at the Academy for Jewish Religion, where he teaches advanced courses in Talmud and Jewish law.