Higher education in the United States is an important and influential industry. State and local government spending on higher education in 2019 was $311 billion (Utah has the second highest per-capita spending). A college degree increases average earnings and reduces unemployment.

Higher education, though, is facing some challenges.

Higher education is not accessible to everyone, particularly for those who come from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.

Indeed, college may be unaffordable for many people. The National College Attainment Network says that only “24% of public four-year colleges/universities were affordable,” along with only 40% of community colleges. The “amount of unmet financial need[] at four-year institutions was $2,627.”

For many students, college graduation is not attainable either. Large percentages of students do not graduate in a normal time for completion of their degrees.

This week, a special panel at the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C., is addressing these concerns with accessibility, affordability and attainability – from a unique angle.

The event is called “The Fate of the Religious University,” but the subtitle explains the link to the challenges to higher education: “How Religious Identity Can Address the Crises Facing Today’s Higher Education System.”

The event will discuss “how distinctive religious identity can help address the most vexing issues facing today’s higher education system.”

The speakers at the event are presidents of religious colleges and universities like the College of the Ozarks, BYU-Hawaii, Catholic University, Dillard University, Yeshiva University, and BYU, along with the president of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, and the former president of BYU-Idaho and BYU-Pathway.

These schools are all pursuing innovative ways of addressing the challenges facing universities and their students, including work-study and scholarship programs to allow students to pay for college, cost-savings programs that decrease costs to students, and connectedness initiatives that help students stay in school.

Religious schools may have important lessons that will benefit all of higher education. People of faith and religious groups provide many important social benefits. Educational innovation appears to be another of these.