The Jehovah's Witnesses now say college is OK... after decades of saying the opposite

Former members are furious as they recall their wasted scholarships, lost careers, and lifelong poverty

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Even if you don’t know a lot about the Jehovah’s Witnesses, there are a few rules that they’ve historically been very strict about. For example, you can’t receive blood transfusions, you can’t celebrate birthdays, and you’re discouraged from obtaining a higher education.

That last one has been a major problem for a lot of JWs over the years because, without a college degree, many of them have struggled to find higher-paying jobs and support their families. Trade schools and religious schools are generally not an issue, but a secular university is almost always out of the question. In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that only 9% of Witnesses had an undergraduate degree, the lowest of any religious group.

The JWs treat higher education the same way as a lot of Christian fundamentalists: They see it as spiritually dangerous—a distraction from worshipping God. They worry that learning science—or having non-JW friends on campus—will steer people away from faith. They also think it’s a waste of time because the end of the world will happen any minute now—just you wait!—so you’re better off spending your time going door-to-door and winning converts.

In fact, a few years ago, a leaked training video meant for new “elders” in the religion taught them how to handle a fellow elder, “Brother Brown,” whose daughters had decided to go to college. (As is the case in a lot of their videos, the good JW elders are devoid of anything resembling a real human personality.)

In that video, the fellow elders say that Brown expressed to others that he just wanted to give his daughters the “best life” possible (God forbid!) and higher education was a part of that… and this had somehow “negatively affected” the congregation. Indeed, someone else’s daughter was also thinking about going to college now. (The horror!) In a longer version of that video, Brother Brown faces “deletion” as an elder because of this apostasy. (Deleted is their actual word for this.)

The point is: They really don’t want their people going to a secular university and they’ve been saying this—and justifying it with Bible verses—for decades upon decades.

Hell, in 2023, Governing Body member Stephen Lett compared higher education to a “school of hungry sharks”: You’re better off avoiding it entirely even if the “survival” rates are pretty high. (If you haven’t seen Lett speak before, yes, this is how he always talks.)

… I like to use the illustration of a school of hungry sharks. Now, let’s say you know the statistics are that if ten people try to swim through this school of hungry sharks, eight of them will make it. Only two will be eaten by the sharks.

Now, would you reason, “Well, that’s a very good survival rate! 80% survival! I think I can do it! I think I could swim through this school of sharks!”

You probably wouldn’t take that risk, would you? Well, what the point? Well, for those who try to swim through and survive spiritually, the figurative school of hungry sharks of higher education, probably, the survival rate is not as good as in our illustration…

All of this is why it came as a bombshell on Friday when Governing Body member David Splane said in an “update” that they were basically taking it all back.

Want to go to college? Sure, why not. It’s no longer an issue.

Many young people are asked: What do you want to do when you grow up?

Of course, the best career is a life in full-time service. Even so, full-time servants need to support themselves financially. In some places, it's possible to earn a decent living without getting further education. In other lands, additional education is required if you hope to find employment that has reasonable hours and that pays fairly well. In such cases, a brother or sister may wonder, “Should I get additional education? If so, what type?”…

…

Is it appropriate for Christians to pursue additional education? With this update, we'd like to clarify our understanding. While there are dangers involved in pursuing certain forms of education, basically, whether to obtain additional education or not is a matter for personal decision.

…

And while an elder or a mature friend may discuss with us the pros and cons about obtaining additional education, no Christian—including the elders—should judge a fellow Christian's personal decision on this matter.

So… no apologies? No explanation for why they made this sudden u-turn? Going to college is now just a “personal choice” that no one should judge negatively?! (Notice he said they now support “additional” education and not “higher” education, even though the latter would fall under the umbrella of the former. Is that to give themselves protection from charges of hypocrisy?)

Jehovah’s Witnesses Governing Body member David Splane

On the one hand, this is a welcome change after decades of saying the exact opposite.

On the other hand, ex-JWs are pissed off. On their subreddit, ex-JW commenters responded to the update with some heartbreaking and downright infuriating posts:

• “Came 35 fucking years too fucking late for me!”

• Imagine if you were a kid that JUST gave up a scholarship this past year for the org.

• This update has me beyond disgusted. Because of these clowns in New York I never pursued nursing school and now struggle to make ends meet. All the sudden they want to cherry pick the Bible and decide that it is okay.

• I had 9 academic scholarships when I graduated high school. I was pretty much guaranteed a scholarship to UCLA, if I started playing for my high school. 9 guys from my school got into the NFL, and I was faster and stronger than all of them. Up until the time that I became disabled, I only worked in call center jobs. 20+ years of customer service/technical support. I still wonder every now and then how different my life could have been if I had continued my education.

• I turned down a scholarship. I am horrified. My parents are in their 70s, and they and I are all below the poverty level. I am having difficulty processing my rage today.

The frustrating isn’t just limited to people who left the fold, though. On a forum for practicing JWs, one person wrote:

This would have been great for me to hear 20 years ago when i was a young honor student from a poor family. But it's too late now. All that sacrifice and struggle just to hear its okay now... I don't know what to say.

That person, unfortunately, was the anomaly on that forum. Many of the True Believers™ just rationalized the change using language suggesting this new interpretation was just Jehovah’s way of helping them out. Because the alternative is admitting the Governing Body was wrong this whole time—which means Jehovah was wrong—and that’s simply not an option.

While the Governing Body hasn’t explained itself (and almost certainly won’t), there are all kinds of theories for why they made this change. Young people are leaving the faith. Parents without degrees have a hard time making the case to their own kids for why they’d be better off following in their footsteps. People with college degrees make more money, which they can then donate to the organization. Take your pick. (One commenter suggested “they need more free lawyers to defend their asses in court.”)

But you have to wonder what the fallout will be. What happens to people like the fictional Brother Brown who were kicked out of their leadership roles because they said exactly what the Witnesses are saying now? Will they be allowed to return to those roles (if, for some reason, they still want them)?

This isn’t just a policy reversal. It’s practically a confession of spiritual abuse, dressed up as progress. For generations, the Jehovah’s Witness leadership crushed members’ ambitions, sabotaged their futures, and cloaked poverty in piety. They told (or at least heavily implied to) parents that sending their kids to a secular college was a betrayal of Jehovah. They shamed young people into throwing away scholarships they had earned in high school. They effectively punished anyone who dared to pursue anything beyond a life of struggle and obedience.

Now, with no apology and no accountability, they casually declare “additional education” a “personal choice,” as if the decades of dismantled livelihoods and lost dreams were just a misunderstanding.

But this is what the organization has always been: a machine that feeds on the devotion of its members, indifferent to the wreckage it leaves behind. They were opposed to education, because education might lead to independence, and independence might get in the way of their need for control. They preferred to keep their flock undereducated, underpaid, and dependent, all while preaching that it was Jehovah’s will. Now—perhaps out of desperation more than anything else—they’re pivoting. They don’t give a damn about the people wondering where this advice was back when they actually needed it.

None of this is spiritual guidance. It’s spiritual exploitation.

(Thanks to those who looked at early drafts of this article and offered feedback.)

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