Level with me: how bad is Liberty University?

[Jonathan Whatley]

Liberty graduates appear to go on to success in all manner of STEM fields, including health professions (including Liberty graduates at other med schools), engineering, and science teaching, and often subject to rigorous professional accreditation standards (e.g., ABET, AOA COCA) and licensing exams the same as apply to any school or its graduates. I'll infer that Liberty University teaches plenty of STEM content competently.

Concerning evolution, three commenters in a recent thread on the Liberty University subreddit:

In my experience with bio, psych, and related courses at LU, they will teach the evolutionary concepts with a disclaimer that "this is not belief of LU or the professor."

I'm in the Department of Biology and Chemistry majoring in Forensic Science with a minor in Biomed. We do definitely learn about evolutionary theory including macroevolution. The first Bio class you'll take is BIOL224 where your last chapter will be in evolutionary theory. Afterwards, you'll get more on it in your upper-level classes! They even have a specific class (that I just finished taking) called CRST290/390 (you can chose to take either, but you'll need to take one) in which they do a deep dive on different views on origins. I took 390 and the first quarter of the course was on Theistic evolution, Old-Earth Creationism, Young-Earth Creationism, and ID. Afterwards, we went into conventional evolutionary theory/Darwinism for around a quarter as well!

Biomed here: microevolution has been taught in many of my classes, as that’s just a fact of biology. Viruses mutate. Animals adapt. Etc. Macroevolution, on the other hand, is acknowledged & refuted

[bjcheung77]

To summarize, Liberty University is for you if you want to go through with an education program that suits your needs, and you desire to take some Faith or Religion based classes. It really depends on the student needs and wants, I usually look at all the classes they have within the degree of choice and pick the degree with the one that most matches what I want to study. For me, Liberty didn't make the cut as I'm not interested in any Faith or Religion based classes...

There are many sides of the story of pros and cons from reviews, take them with a grain of salt, if the degree fits your budget, learning interests, etc, you can decide to go for it. Always have a couple of institutions in your short list, and a backup option or two just in case either or both of them fall of your list. Compare the institutions on your current list and see how they fair against Liberty and if they fit your budget, learning style, etc... Good luck, have fun!

[MFG]

Let me throw my log into the fire. ..

[quote pid='433719' dateline='1736429979']

... I was hyper focused to finish after the trials and tribulations I had at UNISA. ...
[/quote]

If it's not too late, what happened at UNISA? Am looking into it.
Thanks!

[Tireman4]

DM me. I also talked about it on Degreeinfo.com

[EliEverIsAHero]

So here's my experience with Liberty.

I was desperate to get into a Doctoral program in Public Policy after facing a number of rejections, so I applied to Liberty's Public Policy PhD (Chinese Affairs concentration). 

I got in pretty easily and was admitted to two courses in Public Policy for the Summer 2024 term with a new student scholarship. I will say that, yes, the religion aspect was a bit ham-fisted and the students tended to be upset or easily flustered on the message boards when I expressed a socially liberal or radical opinion, although the responses were generally civil if heated. 

The readings tend to be by Intercollegiate Studies Institute types who use religion to substantiate conservative talking points, mixed in with theorists who are genuinely essential to the field. 

I didn't continue in large part because the funding model was bait-and-switch in that they lure new students in with a generous first-semester scholarship and then ask you to pay your own way going further - I didn't want to give Liberty a single red cent out of my own pocket, so I didn't continue. 

I'm now studying Defense/National Security Policy at Missouri State instead.

[Vle045]

So here's my experience with Liberty.

I was desperate to get into a Doctoral program in Public Policy after facing a number of rejections, so I applied to Liberty's Public Policy PhD (Chinese Affairs concentration). 

I got in pretty easily and was admitted to two courses in Public Policy for the Summer 2024 term with a new student scholarship. I will say that, yes, the religion aspect was a bit ham-fisted and the students tended to be upset or easily flustered on the message boards when I expressed a socially liberal or radical opinion, although the responses were generally civil if heated. 

The readings tend to be by Intercollegiate Studies Institute types who use religion to substantiate conservative talking points, mixed in with theorists who are genuinely essential to the field. 

I didn't continue in large part because the funding model was bait-and-switch in that they lure new students in with a generous first-semester scholarship and then ask you to pay your own way going further - I didn't want to give Liberty a single red cent out of my own pocket, so I didn't continue. 

I'm now studying Defense/National Security Policy at Missouri State instead.

Interesting.  I’d take courses at Liberty if they were free or dirt cheap, but I would not be interested in any politically charged discussions.  Although, I am guessing that would be expected for courses in Public Policy.  

[spohara]

As you can probably gather, the curriculum at Liberty is credible. But it will require readings from a conservative perspective most likely. I've heard mixed things about quoting the bible in papers - that you are permitted to, but doesn't count against your minimum number of citations, and here on the forum people say it was expected or required. There will be nothing racist, sexist or homophobic in the curriculum. Whether you will be perceived to be any of those things depends entirely on the person you're dealing with. The folks who think any conservative is those things will certainly see your liberty degree and cast you in that light. Others likely will not. My question is always, how many of those are going to be hiring managers where you're trying to get hired? Would you want to work for a place like that or person like that? Will it activate unconscious biases even if they don't actively think you're any of those things? For me, even if only 5-10% of hiring managers would discriminate, it pushes me away from liberty. If I ever wanted to have a real second career in academia (current plans on teaching are not ambitious) it might hurt relative to a degree from another institution. This is one of the reasons I stayed clear of LU for a masters degree, even though it would not be a hinderance to employment in my current career field. I know LU grads who have no trouble in defense, law enforcement, and government. The big question is what you want to do, what the alternatives are and whether you're OK with closing a small number of doors.

[Stonybeach]

I drove through Lynchburg, VA, and was stunned by the beauty of the Liberty U campus. This appears to be a first-class operation! Jumping through hoops is the "drill" when earning a college degree. Will you choose not to work for a company one day because you don't want to jump through their hoops? That is your prerogative.

[studyingfortests]

Here are some thoughts on Liberty from the perspective of social work.

Liberty has a CSWE-accredited MSW program. I'm not really sure how they managed to get CSWE accreditation (which is very recent) unless they either lied to or threatened CSWE, because, fundamentally, some of Liberty's core values (anti-homosexuality in general, vehement opposition to same sex marriage, various other far-right beliefs) are at odds with CSWE. Likewise, Liberty, according to several who have graduated from their MSW, incorporates Bible study into nearly every course in the MSW curriculum, requiring each assignment (or at least, most assignments) to be tied back to Bible verses. This is problematic, as CSWE dictates that social workers are not to present with any particular religious agenda, and certainly not to promote any religious agenda.

Comments from MSW students who have been through the program are mixed; some were not bothered by the constant Bible citations. Others found the constant Christian drumbeat to be unmanageable and moved.

What I have heard from practically everyone is that, aside from the craziness (rejecting evolution, backwards perspectives on science), the scholarship of the school seems to be excellent. The reputation regarding hiring, however, is a different matter, and seems highly subjective depending on which employer you ask.

[EliEverIsAHero]

As you can probably gather, the curriculum at Liberty is credible.  But it will require readings from a conservative perspective most likely.  I've heard mixed things about quoting the bible in papers - that you are permitted to, but doesn't count against your minimum number of citations, and here on the forum people say it was expected or required.  There will be nothing racist, sexist or homophobic in the curriculum.  Whether you will be perceived to be any of those things depends entirely on the person you're dealing with.  The folks who think any conservative is those things will certainly see your liberty degree and cast you in that light. Others likely will not. My question is always, how many of those are going to be hiring managers where you're trying to get hired? Would you want to work for a place like that or person like that?  Will it activate unconscious biases even if they don't actively think you're any of those things?  For me, even if only 5-10% of hiring managers would discriminate, it pushes me away from liberty.  If I ever wanted to have a real second career in academia (current plans on teaching are not ambitious) it might hurt relative to a degree from another institution.  This is one of the reasons I stayed clear of LU for a masters degree, even though it would not be a hinderance to employment in my current career field.  I know LU grads who have no trouble in defense, law enforcement, and government.  The big question is what you want to do, what the alternatives are and whether you're OK with closing a small number of doors.

Some of those "-isms" and "-phobias" (homophobia, transphobia, etc.) are most noticeable when someone expresses them overtly - in the case of work by conservative ideologues, these forms of discrimination are often more discreetly cushioned in a "logical" way (e.g. the author framing themselves as a "gender (ideology) skeptic" or "DEI critic") that uses the plausible deniability of empiricism or dissent. 

During the semester I took at Liberty, the focus was more on how religious thought can substantiate certain views on abortion or the death penalty, but the aforementioned type of discourse was also intermittently present.