Distinguishing itself is also part of Willamette’s even more aggressive strategy in acquiring the 134-year-old C.S.T., which was suffering multimillion-dollar annual shortfalls that, unlike Willamette, it could not make up from its endowment.

Among the institutions Willamette considers its competitors are small liberal-arts colleges such as Reed and Whitman. But it has something they don’t: several graduate divisions (Reed offers one master’s degree in liberal studies) and a goal of increasing its enrollment from the current 2,700 to 4,000 over the next 10 years, starting with about 400 from the theology school.

“‘Midsize university’ is a sweet spot,” said Mr. Thorsett, who is working to position his school as small enough to promise personal attention but big enough to offer lots of choice, while not coincidentally lowering per-unit costs by serving a larger study body. “The university nature of our institution lets us do things our competitors can’t do.”

These include ramping up money-saving accelerated programs through which students can get both undergraduate and graduate degrees more quickly than it would take them elsewhere, such as a five-year combined B.A. and M.B.A. It now may add a joint B.A. and master’s of divinity degree with C.S.T., some of whose faculty have already arrived on campus.

“Those kinds of synergies are really distinctive,” Mr. Thorsett said. “And they’re something that is really hard for the competition to match.”

Other institutions also are trying to cash in on the growing impatience among students and their parents about how long it takes to earn degrees. Only 41 percent of undergraduates now finish in four years, federal figures show, costing them even more than they’d planned.

Speeding this up has become a promotional tool. Howard University, for instance — which suffered a nearly 28 percent drop in enrollment last year — is guaranteeing rebates equal to half the cost of their final semesters to students who graduate on time or early.