Mission Moment

Dear Covenant Families,

A Covenant education is an expensive proposition.

Today, Covenant’s average annual tuition is approximately $21,500. Over thirteen years, a family’s total investment to educate one student, excluding tuition assistance and annual price increases, is approximately $280,000.   

When Paige and I started to consider Covenant for our daughter, Sophie, cost was a significant factor. Not only were we concerned about our ability to squeeze the cost of tuition into our already tight budget, we worried that we wouldn’t be able to afford Covenant for the duration of Sophie’s education. We had other cost-related questions:  How much will tuition increase each year? Do we want to start Sophie at a school that we might not be able to afford long-term? Like many other Covenant parents, we wanted to make wise decisions about our daughter’s education and with our finances. Ultimately, the financial path just didn’t seem very clear, or to be more specific, it wasn’t clear enough for me.   

Almost twelve years have passed since we made the decision to enroll Sophie at Covenant and by God’s grace, Sophie graduated from Covenant in 2023. Looking back over Sophie’s ten years at Covenant, I find myself in complete awe of God’s faithfulness and His provision for our family. 

For our daughter, Covenant was so much more than we had hoped and prayed. All that Sophie received from Covenant---the instruction, the lessons, the opportunities, the discipleship, the disappointments, the failures, the encouragement, the confidence, the relationships, the love and most importantly, the Truth---is worth so much more than the total amount we paid toward tuition. Yes, Covenant prepared Sophie well for college, but more importantly, it gave her a strong foundation upon which to build and live a Christ-centered life.

For me, God used our family’s journey at Covenant to teach me that, like so many aspects of the Christian life, funding a private school education is a walk of faith. In hindsight, I see clearly that God used the high cost of a private school education and the uncertainty of our ability to afford Covenant---year after year, enrollment contract after enrollment contract---to keep me dependent on Him so that I might recognize, as I do now, that Sophie’s Covenant education was God’s gift to our family, not mine. 

I often reflect on Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight.” These verses have grown more and more meaningful to me as I’ve grown older, and I wish I had embraced them more as we embarked on our journey at Covenant. I suspect I would have experienced more of Jesus along the way than I did.

As we enter into this new year with re-enrollment just around the corner, I know that many other families wrestle with the same questions and fears that we did. I encourage you to take time to reflect on the different ways that God has provided for you and your family, thus far. If you’re like me, it’s easy to be so focused on the needs that lie ahead that you forget about God’s amazing track record for meeting your needs. With God’s faithfulness in the forefront of your mind, consider who you’re trusting for another year at Covenant. And, for whose glory. My prayer is that you and your student(s) experience more of Jesus as you put your trust in Him. 

Non Nobis,

Brandt Wright
Assistant Head of School for Finance & Operations