People serving those experiencing poverty, addiction, and homelessness need education that understands their work. They need practical tools, a strong foundation in faith, and a path forward that does not put a degree financially out of reach.
That is the purpose behind City Vision University: radically affordable online education for people serving the poor, the addicted, and the underserved. Our goal is not simply to award degrees. It is to help people rebuild their lives, strengthen the organizations where they serve, and make Christian higher education more accessible.
Our history brings together rescue missions, Christian community development, Black church traditions, recovery ministries, and technology innovation. Understanding how those streams came together helps explain both what we do and why we do it.
Key Takeaways
- City Vision combines rescue mission roots with technology innovation to expand access to Christian education.
- Its mission connects individual development, stronger nonprofit organizations, and more accessible educational systems.
- Affordable online degrees, prior learning credit, and Christian integration support people serving underserved communities.
- Nonprofit partnerships extend learning through degree programs, free courses, and customized staff training.
From Rescue College to City Vision University
City Vision began in 1998 as Rescue College, founded out of the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions. Its original focus was straightforward: provide a one-year educational program for people working in rescue missions serving those experiencing homelessness and addiction in the United States.
At the same time, another part of our story was developing through TechMission. Founded out of the Black church ministry PREP, with founding members connected to the Christian Community Development Association, TechMission built a network of more than 500 educational programs in urban ministries.
These organizations approached the same mission from different directions. Rescue College brought education rooted in frontline ministry. TechMission brought experience using technology, networks, and shared resources to strengthen Christian nonprofits.
Several milestones brought those approaches together:
- 1998: Rescue College was founded to educate rescue mission workers.
- 2005: Rescue College received accreditation from the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, offering a bachelor’s degree completion program in missions.
- 2007: TechMission’s UrbanMinistry.org and ChristianVolunteering.org expanded access to more than 100,000 free educational resources.
- 2008: Rescue College became part of TechMission and was renamed City Vision College.
- 2015: Graduate programs were added, and City Vision College became City Vision University.
- 2016: City Vision helped found the Christian Higher Education Innovation Alliance with more than 100 leaders.
- 2019: Free massive open online courses opened another avenue for expanding access to education.
From an enrollment of about 30 students in 2008, the university grew to more than 200 during the period covered by this history. Our free course initiative grew from an initial base of more than 7,000 users to a reported reach of more than 177,000.
The underlying question remained the same: how can we make useful Christian education available to people whom traditional higher education often struggles to serve?
Rooted in Ministry, Informed by Innovation
Our relationship with rescue missions is not just part of our name or history. Across the period described here, more than 105 rescue missions had sent over 265 students to City Vision, and 23 current or former faculty members had come from rescue missions.
TechMission also brought an extensive nonprofit network. Its work included more than 8,565 nonprofit partners and the placement of 683 full-time interns. Those relationships helped us understand the training needs of organizations doing difficult, demanding work with limited resources.
Innovation is another part of that foundation. My own background includes co-founding a research group at MIT with one of the fathers of the internet, followed by doctoral work at Bakke Graduate University focused on disruptive innovation, Christian higher education, and people experiencing poverty.
But the mission is also personal. I grew up around drug use, including friends using drugs in elementary school. After experiencing burnout and turning to God, I came to understand that my heart was in the kind of work City Vision now supports.
That combination matters. Technology gives us ways to increase access. Ministry relationships help us keep the education relevant. Personal experience reminds us that the people we serve are not abstract problems to solve.
Our work has received recognition from organizations and publications including Christianity Today, Forbes, the U.S. Department of Education, and the Pioneer Institute. Recognition is encouraging, but the more important test is whether students and partners can serve people better because of what they learn.
One Mission, Three Levels of Transformation
We organize our vision around three connected areas: transforming individuals, transforming organizations, and transforming educational systems. Each matters on its own, but the greatest impact comes when they reinforce one another.
Transforming Individuals Through Addiction Counseling Education
Our addiction counseling program helps equip people to respond to the addiction epidemic. For some students, that means building on years of ministry experience. For others, it means moving from receiving help in a recovery program to becoming someone who helps others.
In the historical outcomes reported for this program, we recorded a 67% graduation rate for matriculated students and a 79% employment or further education rate. The program served 214 students over the preceding five-year period.
Those numbers become more meaningful when connected to individual lives.
Brittany Hargrove became addicted to drugs while in college and left school. After an arrest and the possibility of a prison sentence, she returned to her faith in Jesus and entered a recovery program at St. Matthew’s House in Naples, Florida.
Through recovery and discipleship, she rebuilt her life. She completed her bachelor’s degree in addiction studies through City Vision and went on to counsel people recovering from addiction at St. Matthew’s House. Her educational path continued with enrollment in our MBA program.
John Dean’s story followed a different path toward a similar calling. He began using drugs at 13, spent 22 years in addiction, and was involved in a gang for 27 years. An encounter with God led him to follow Jesus at Highway 80 Rescue Mission.
He continued his recovery and discipleship through House of Disciples in Longview, Texas, earned his bachelor’s degree through City Vision’s addiction counseling program, and became a case manager helping people in recovery and people leaving incarceration. He also began encouraging others as they became City Vision students.
Roughly 20% to 30% of our students, in the period described, had recently experienced homelessness, left prison, or recovered from addiction. Their stories illustrate the kind of opportunity we want education to support: a path from rebuilding a life to helping others rebuild theirs.
Transforming Organizations by Developing Their People
A nonprofit can have a powerful mission and still need help developing its staff. Growth brings new responsibilities, new managers, and new training needs.
Our nonprofit management, business, and ministry leadership programs address that organizational side of service. Historical figures for ministry and management included a 62% graduation rate, an 83% employment or further education rate, and 347 students served over five years.
St. Matthew’s House provides a practical example. As the organization doubled in size over several years, it needed to develop the people joining its team. Over a three-year period, it sent 33 students to City Vision and contributed two faculty members. Our role was to help those students gain skills that supported the organization’s growth.
Engineering Ministries International illustrates another kind of partnership. Its internship program operated across five countries. Together, we developed a graduate academic program for 18 staff members and interns. The organization also paid us to develop custom open courses through City Vision Institute.
Michelle Porter, City Vision’s first graduate, went on to found two rescue missions. Through the relationship associated with Souls Harbour Rescue Mission, she sent more than 20 students and interns for education and development.
These partnerships show why we think beyond individual enrollment. When an organization develops its people, the benefits can extend to everyone those people serve.
Transforming Educational Systems Through Free Courses
Not everyone needs to begin with a degree. Someone completing a recovery program may first need an introduction to working in a rescue mission. A newly promoted supervisor may need practical human resources training.
City Vision Institute makes free courses available for these kinds of needs. Our reported reach grew to more than 177,000 users across 167 countries, extending training far beyond the university’s degree enrollment.
Course areas have included rescue mission orientation, nonprofit human resources, Christian community development, leadership, disruptive innovation, and higher education. We have also offered resources addressing specific challenges, including a COVID-19 toolkit.
The human resources course, for example, addresses an unglamorous but important need: helping managers understand responsibilities and avoid mistakes that can create legal problems. Practical education should help people with the work actually in front of them.
What Makes City Vision Different?
There are many Christian colleges and many online degree programs. Our approach brings together several priorities that are especially important for the people and organizations we serve.
A Deliberately Focused Education
We focus on Christians serving people experiencing poverty, addiction, and other forms of exclusion. That specialization allows us to design education around the realities of rescue missions, recovery ministries, and Christian nonprofits rather than expecting students to translate every general business or ministry concept on their own.
Many faculty members have worked directly in these settings. Their practical experience, alongside academic preparation, helps connect coursework with ministry responsibilities.
Affordability and Online Convenience
Our affordability model was developed to cost less than half of many other Christian college degrees, and less than a quarter of some. The point is not simply to offer a lower price. It is to make further education realistic for people whose calling may not lead to a high salary.
Online education also allows students to pursue learning without leaving the communities and organizations where they serve.
Recognition of Prior Learning
People often arrive with substantial learning that is not reflected in their academic records. Years of ministry, organizational responsibility, and relevant training can represent real educational development.
Our prior learning credit approach can recognize eligible learning for up to 25% of a degree. The principle is simple: students should have an opportunity to demonstrate what they have already learned rather than automatically starting from zero.
Deep Christian Integration
Faith is not an extra component added to an otherwise unrelated education. We help translate professional tools into a Christian context so students can develop their abilities while strengthening, rather than setting aside, their faith.
That commitment connects our recovery, ministry, and management programs. We want students to become more capable in their work and more grounded in why they do it.
A Partnership Model That Reaches Beyond One Student
Historically, about 60% to 70% of our students came through nonprofit partners. That reflects an intentional model: serve the whole organization, not just the individual taking a course.
Our academic work has been organized around addiction counseling and ministry and management. Programs discussed in this stage of our development included nonprofit management, ministry and leadership, business, and an MBA. A proposed Master of Science in Organizational Leadership was under review at that time.
A relationship might begin with one employee pursuing a degree. Over several years, the organization could have five degree students, while 20 staff members and 30 program participants use free courses. Those figures illustrate the partnership model, not enrollment requirements.
Free courses and degree programs support each other. Some organizations pay for customized training, such as a staff orientation. Some free-course participants later choose a paid degree program. These relationships help sustain wider access while meeting specific organizational needs.
Faculty and board leadership bring experience across ministry, business, and Christian higher education. For example, Commissioner Jim Knaggs brought experience overseeing a $2 billion budget as a former Salvation Army Western Territory commander, helping us consider how to serve organizations such as the Salvation Army more effectively.
Building a Movement of Better-Equipped People
The next step in this vision depends on students, alumni, churches, and nonprofit partners sharing what they have received.
- Teach others: Pass along useful tools and ideas from your education.
- Share free courses: Help colleagues and program participants find relevant training.
- Refer students: Connect people who could benefit from an affordable, mission-focused degree.
- Connect organizational leaders: Explore staff development, customized training, or education as an employee benefit.
- Support future students: Give individually or through a church or organization to help sustain scholarships.
Scholarships depend on alumni and other donors continuing to give. Partnerships depend on people recognizing that education can strengthen their whole organization.
Ultimately, the measure of City Vision’s success is not simply how large the university becomes. It is whether our students and partners are better equipped to help the millions of people their collective work reaches. Our history began with training rescue mission workers. Our vision remains rooted in that same purpose: helping people serve others more effectively, with practical skills, accessible education, and a deep Christian foundation.