“We’ve seen situations in which somebody will graduate and have to go to the job that’s a sure bet that provides salary so they can pay off their education loans, even though their heart was moving them to a really risky, adventurous, entrepreneurial activity,” he said.

Full-time master’s students will receive free tuition beginning in 2015 at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary — a move to offset the crushing debt that officials say too many seminary students incur.

The seminary aims to trim full-time master’s enrollment to 130 — down by about 20 from its current level — and focus on recruiting students from diverse backgrounds that they see as holding the most promise for work in ministry and counseling.

Officials believed it would be the first theological school to cap enrollment at the number of students it can afford to offer full rides.

The idea had long been floated but “seen as too pie-in-the-sky for many years,” said seminary President Michael Jinkins.

But trustees meeting in late October committed to raising about $17 million toward the program, which would supplement funds from seminary’s more than $70 million in endowment funds. Those funds, plus reducing enrollment, should make the program affordable, Jinkins said.

He said many seminarians have faced chronic problems from crushing student-loan debts. This will let them “go wherever God calls them without worrying about debt,” Jinkins said.