America’s Largest Seminaries in 2023-24

In 2016 my colleague Chelsen Vicari reviewed figures collected by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) to compile a list of full-time student enrollment among accredited schools to get a better picture of the largest seminaries in the United States.

Reports from the 2023-24 academic year are now publicly available, prompting this follow-up piece. Some of the rankings have changed, but the trends Chelsen first identified in 2016 have continued.

The ATS provides both a headcount enrollment (HC) total (including part-time students) and full-time equivalent enrollment (FTE). I’ve ranked schools based upon each metric in the tables below.

Liberty Theological Seminary now ranks largest with 4,050 full-time enrolled students and a headcount of 5,507 (the institution has a sizable online enrollment). Liberty University’s John W. Rawlings School of Divinity received ATS accreditation in 2020.

Fuller Theological Seminary, the largest seminary by enrollment in 2016, has dropped by more than half to 657 full-time enrolled students from 1,542 in the 2015-16 academic year. It no longer ranks in the top 10 for FTE, and ranks 8th largest in headcount (1,614).

Baptist-affiliated schools, including Liberty, continue to have the largest enrollments. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and Gateway Seminary all appear in the top 10.

The non-denominational evangelical Dallas Theological Seminary, the only historically dispensationalist school on the list, ranks fourth, while Asbury Theological Seminary, an evangelical school in the Wesleyan tradition, ranks seventh-largest. Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, which rounds out the list, is the largest seminary in the Reformed tradition* (yes, I’m aware that there has and continues to be a large Reformed contingent at most of the Southern Baptist seminaries as well).

All of the largest seminaries in the country are evangelical, and no mainline Protestant institutions rank in the top 10. United Methodist-affiliated Duke Divinity School continues to be the largest mainline Protestant seminary with an FTE of 570 and a headcount of 624, followed by United Theological Seminary (which is both UMC-affiliated and evangelical) with an FTE of 515 and a headcount of 471 (note: these two numbers might have been transposed in the data, since headcount is almost always larger than FTE). UMC-affiliated Candler School of Theology at Emory University has an FTE of 412 and a headcount of 419.

Information provided by ATS reports that in the 2023 academic year 20 percent of member schools were Roman Catholic or Orthodox, 34 percent were mainline Protestant and 46 percent were Evangelical. Enrollment numbers were different: 9 percent of seminarians were enrolled at Roman Catholic or Orthodox schools, 19 percent were enrolled at mainline Protestant institutions and 72 percent were enrolled in Evangelical seminaries.

The 274 ATS schools reporting in 2023 had a total of 76,166 students enrolled. Full-time Equivalent Enrollment (FTE) was 46,398.

Data on individual member schools can be accessed on Table 1.2 of the 2023-2024 ATS Data Tables.

*Two readers contest my classification of Gordon-Conwell as “within the Reformed tradition” noting that it is officially interdenominational and evangelical. There is a significant Reformed contingent at GCTS and partnerships with Reformed institutions (such as Reformed University Fellowship) but there are also students within the Arminian tradition, which would vary from schools like Westminster and Reformed Theological Seminary.

More from IRD:

What are America’s Largest Seminaries? (2016)

What are America’s Largest Seminaries in 2019?

Ligon Duncan on U.S. Theological Education Today