Baptist College of Florida to launch new Miami campus in August

MIAMI–Clayton Cloer, newly elected president of The Baptist College of Florida, visited with 50 pastors in the Southeast region and shared his plans and vision to launch a BCF campus at the Florida Baptist Convention’s Southeast Regional Center in Hialeah.

The South Florida BCF campus will launch in August 2023 for the fall semester and will offer a Bachelor of Arts in Christian Studies with a choice of a pastoral ministry or mission ministry concentration.

Also, Cloer told pastors, if at least 10 students in a language group enroll, classes would be made available for them in that language. Most of the pastors in attendance serve Spanish or Creole-speaking congregations.

Cloer’s vision for the next five years is to have BCF’s full program of study, currently offered at the main campus in Graceville, also offered at the South Florida campus. That includes offering music, worship, education and psychology degrees at the Hialeah campus.

“We want to make it so that any and every Florida Baptist who wants a higher education will have it available to them,” said Cloer. His plan to make this happen involves forming dual-enrollment partnerships with Christian education high schools, developing a program in which all classes are available online, and launching sites across the state.

“You want to have your children and grandchildren trained in higher Christian education, and we want to train them,” he said.

Cloer also is focused on making higher Christian education financially accessible.

“The Baptist College of Florida recognizes the great need of being able to offer quality education. With quality comes cost. As the cost of higher education continues to rise, The Baptist College of Florida is committed to offering quality and affordable education that will lift the financial burden and provide students with opportunities to fully commit to kingdom work, whether that is full-time or bi-vocational ministry, within the business marketplace, education or psychology,” he said.

The college is currently offering on-campus and online scholarships to meet the needs of students in addition to federal aid.

“This is a unique time. Higher education is moving into high school as most juniors and seniors are doing college work. There is an ongoing surge in Christian high school education. Across the state, we are seeing Christian education explode. I want to help you serve them. Let’s do it together.”