Cedarville Magazine Spring-Summer

kids also relied on money they made

themselves. One summer, our son Scott ’00

held eight jobs at once! His goal as a premed

student was to make it through college debt-

free, and he did.

– Another thing we took into account

was that when Alex was entering college,

he wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted

to do. He had looked at engineering as a

possibility, but was increasingly interested in

the medical field. Cedarville had essentially

any pre-professional program he would

have wanted, so the fact that kids usually

change their major was not concerning, as

he wouldn’t have had to switch schools if his

career aspirations had changed.

Describe how you worked through

the cost of a private Christian college.

What financial aid avenues were

available to you?

– The tiered merit aid system has really

leveled out Cedarville’s costs in comparison

to many other schools, and that has made

attending a possibility and a reality.

– My wife is an amazing scholarship

finder. She did research online, and she

found our kids thousands and thousands

of dollars. She had a whole notebook full of

opportunities: $500 from the Rotary Club,

some from VFW, a bit from Kiwanis. There

were so many opportunities! She still helps

other people who say they can’t afford it.

Well, we couldn’t afford it, either! You have

to go find scholarships. It might be weird,

like when the kids got a scholarship from

the Elks Club and we’d go to the banquet

and sit in the smoke-filled room, but we got

the scholarship and a buffet meal.

– As a middle-income family, we didn’t

expect to get a ton of need-based aid, so Alex

worked throughout the summer to pay for

all of his incidental expenses, and we had set

aside money targeted specifically to pay for

his education. Cedarville is not inexpensive,

but the cost is well in line with the quality

of education, and that quality of education

did not represent any sort of compromise

compared to other well-known schools on

the East Coast.

Can you talk about any professional

experiences your kids have had at

Cedarville that specifically prepared

them for their current position or

professional work in general?

– Both Michelle ’02 and Melissa ’15

worked with various hospitals around

Cedarville as a required part of their nursing

degrees. While in the premed program, Scott

also had to go out into medical facilities to

gain experience. As an education student,

Karen ’07 went out into several schools

to complete her student teaching hours,

which put her right on the front lines of the

educational world.

–This past semester, Alex helped out at a

local hospital, and he’ll be going on a medical

missions trip over spring break to use the

skills he’s learning.

Cedarville is obviously very concerned

about spiritual development, but we’re

also preparing students to succeed in

the professional world. In what ways

have you seen that preparation go from

promise to reality?

– I work with a lot of engineers in the

aerospace industry, and I run into people

I know here all the time. Why? Because if

you have a student who wants to go into the

STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering,

Math] and wants to go to a Christian school,

Cedarville is the first choice. You won’t find

a school that reinforces Christian values

quite like this one, and you won’t find a

school that prepares its students quite like

Cedarville does.

– Cedarville has a very good regional

reputation, but its reputation extends

beyond the Midwest. When we went out to

California to visit other Christian schools

with my two older kids, people would say,

“Wait a minute, you’re an hour away from

Cedarville?Why are you visiting a school out

here? If we lived anywhere near Cedarville,

we’d go there instead!”

– We challenged our kids to have a

marketable skill, and that’s what happened.

One of our kids is an orthopedic surgeon,

one is a registered nurse, one has a Master

of Education degree, one is an insurance

broker, and one is about to graduate with a

nursing degree.

Of Greg and Kay Watson’s six children, two are current

Cedarville freshmen and one is enrolled in Cedarville’s College

Now program. Greg is retired from the Air Force and now

works for the Department of the Air Force as a civil servant,

while Kay homeschools their two youngest children.

Five of Tom and Becky Ruhlman’s eight children have

graduated from or are currently attending Cedarville. Tom

is the Lead Pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Seattle,

where he has served for the past 35 years, and Becky is a

homemaker.

Phil and Sue Treide have two children, including one who

is a senior biology major at Cedarville. Phil is a Marketing

Manager for EMC2, a multinational IT management firm, and

Sue is a homemaker.

Cedarville Magazine