WGU vs. Liberty

Discussion in 'Business and MBA degrees' started by pakrz, Jul 9, 2015.

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  1. curtisc83

    curtisc83 New Member

    Those things plus it's a ranked school that conducts research. I've gave some pretty good reasons on why one should consider LU. What are your reasons to attend WGU over LU for a MBA? It's not cheaper than LU with the vet discount, it's unranked, completely online with no B&M campus, has no alumni network. LU's alumni network isn't Harvards but it does exist and will only get stronger when LU goes FBS.
     
  2. curtisc83

    curtisc83 New Member

    I took BIOL 200 which is the Foundation of Bio course and stopped there. I'm not saying LU is perfect but what I am saying is the creation class is not taught as a science and is not taught in the same course as a actual Bio course and doesn't replace it. What I do know is the second one is optional but the first one isn't. The first one is required for all majors. If a student wants to Minor in creation studies more power to them, but that's their choice, a silly choice but still their choice.
     
  3. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Yeah, trying to prove that the earth is only a few thousand years old isn't the sort of cutting edge research I would brag about in academic circles.

    No, you didn't. Your reasons were:

    1. It is ranked #80 in a regional ranking (impressive to no one)
    2. The university has an ABA accredited law school (irrelevant to the MBA program)
    3. The university has an osteopathic medical school (irrelevant to the MBA program)
    4. You had fun BSing about football with a Baylor fan.

    I'm sorry, but if any of my children tell me they chose a school for the reasons you cited I would probably have them tested for lead.

    WGU

    1. Not founded by a raging racist
    2. Not founded as a school where white Christians could avoid desegregation
    3. Does not infuse fundamentalist christianity into every single subject including business
    4. Does not discriminate against non-Christian faculty


    The state campuses were actually established (often by executive order) by the governors of those respective states. So WGU Indiana was established by the Governor of Indiana, WGU Texas was established by the Governor of Texas etc.

    I say this because you seem to be implying that the school, by virtue of utilizing a 100% online delivery model, is somehow less legitimate than a B&M school founded on the premise of furthering segregationist goals. Yes, WGU is an online school. It is an online school established by seated governors to provide affordable education to everyone (but especially residents of their respective states). If you think being ranked #80 in the Regional - South goals really means that much, then by all means, run with Liberty University all the days of your life. But to argue that it makes the school "better" than WGU is foolishness. They were both founded with very, very different goals.

    And, as said earlier, no employer is going to look more favorably upon an MBA from a regionally ranked school (with no MBA ranking) than an MBA from a completely unranked school unless they simply have a personal affinity for that particular school.


    WGU has an alumni network. Any school with alumni has an alumni network. That doesn't mean that the school has a club in NYC. But there are WGU grads working in industry who would undoubtedly look favorably upon other WGU grads. Heck, the same can be said of UofP. To say that Liberty's alumni network is stronger is, in my opinion, misguided.

    I would like to thank you, however, because this discussion has actually caused me to like Liberty University less as the conversation progresses.
     
  4. curtisc83

    curtisc83 New Member

    Dismissing a entire school because of one required course (creationism) is silly. Your hang ups for not liking LU seem to all be centered around religion. That's your opinion and not shared by all. LU is ranked 80th in the south but consider the U.S. has over 2000 colleges and only a small percent get ranked 80th isn't impressive but it does mean something. I can't agree with WGU's network being comparable to LU's. There is nothing to keep alumni interested or united like LU. Sure WGU grads may run into each other but that in no way is the same as LU grads running into each other and talking about how much the school has grown or something sports related. This last year I went to LU's homecoming weekend and FB game. It was amazing and they have stuff to do for alumni during that entire week. Great way to meet other grads and build friendships. On the Alumni subject we will have to agree to disagree.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 10, 2015
  5. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    C’mon, boys, can’t y’all play nice with each other? You all seem to be acting like prima donnas engaging in an apologetics game for your respective positions. Frankly, you’re all going to burn in the lake of fire and brimstone. I am the only one here who will not burn in the lake of fire and brimstone. So there.

    Now, was Liberty founded by a southern racist? Frankly, I don’t know if Falwell was a racist at the time he founded Liberty, but at one time most people down in that neck of the woods were racist. (And many still are.) But hell, if even George Wallace could change (and the evidence is that he did so), so could Falwell.

    Will you get a dose of religion at Liberty? Duhhhhhhhh . . . It’s a Christian university, founded by a fundamentalist. But if you think that Falwell was Fundie, consider that he didn’t hold a candle to the folk at Bob Jones University, which discriminated far more than Liberty ever did. And that Jones himself considered Falwell a heathen. Yep, ol’ Jerry was downright liberal when compared to B.J.

    Can liberals function in such an environment? Ask the liberal guys on this board alone who are doing programs at University of the Cumberlands, which is (at least on paper) just as conservative. (By the way, I was in the U. Cumb. neighborhood a few days ago when I went through Kentucky go get down to Tennessee. Nice area – if the UC guys haven’t touched base with campus, I’d recommend the trip.)

    My own take on this affair, FWIW: I’d go with Liberty over WGU, but as y’all know, to me the phrase online university is an oxymoron, regardless of how it was founded. Is WGU a credible school? Based on its history, of course. But in terms of being a B&M institution, it doesn’t even approach Liberty.

    A note on something that hasn’t been touched thus far in terms of the difference between the MBA and the MSM – I’ve always thought of an MSM as an MBA without the prerequisites. Period. So the question for someone who wants a master’s in business, management, or whatever, is whether you’ve had the pre-reqs and, if not, whether you want to bother fulfilling those requirements.
     
  6. curtisc83

    curtisc83 New Member

    The reasons I went with a MAML is because it was faster and wasn't a MBA. I just figured if I ever got an MBA I would like to get one from a Texas school like UT. MBA's seem to be a snotty bunch and where you got yours seems to matter. LU doesn't command that sort of authority when compared to better well known schools. So a MAML was a safer bet that left me room to grow into a ranked MBA program if that time ever came.
     
  7. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Creationism isn't limited to a single class at Liberty. I wasn't referring to a single class at Liberty, that is a discussion you were having with sanantone. I was referring to the fact that the entire science program is centered around an anti-evolution stance.

    The school has a center for creation studies, for crying out loud. And who's the head of it? Why, the chair of their biology and chemistry departments, of course!

    Really? Because I think I've been clearly crapping on Jerry Falwell and his bigoted history. Or did your time at Liberty make it so that you think that an attack on Jerry Falwell is an attack on religion?

    Aluminum foil crosses can be picked up at the entrance to protect you against my demonic attacks, if so.

    Let's see, in 1964 Jerry Falwell publicly accused Martin Luther King, Jr. of being a communist subversive, so that sounds pretty racisty to me. But it was only in 1966 that he founded Lynchburg Christian Academy as a haven for white Christian students.

    But, I mean, he didn't found Liberty until 1971, so obviously he worked out all of that hatred in those five years. I mean, after all, the guy only said crap like:

    “If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made.”

    “The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.”

    “The true Negro does not want integration…. He realizes his potential is far better among his own race.”

    And, my personal favorite, his lamenting the impending end of humanity because he heard from a pastor friend of his from the north that an interracial couple attempted to live next door to his church as husband and wife.

    But hey, if David Duke starts a university now I guess he only needs to wait that five year cool-down period before people start proclaiming his school is A-OK.

    Normally I find myself in agreement with Steve Levicoff about many of these things. But "online university" being an oxymoron? Come on now. Universities are in the business of teaching people. And if a university can do that using the medium of the internet then power to them. Bricks and leafy quads don't a university make tis the learning within that makes it a university.

    Arguing that Liberty is more legitimate than WGU because it has a B&M presence is as ridiculous as saying that a university with a larger campus is better than one with a smaller campus.
     
  8. curtisc83

    curtisc83 New Member

    I said what I said about hangups because of what you listed below about why WGU is preferred over LU.

    WGU

    1. Not founded by a raging racist
    2. Not founded as a school where white Christians could avoid desegregation
    3. Does not infuse fundamentalist christianity into every single subject including business
    4. Does not discriminate against non-Christian faculty

    Lots of people were pretty racist in the 60's. People age and mature and see the errors of their ways. That's just growing up and becoming wiser. What people did back then is wrong but those were different times. Since Jerry Sr. is dead all this doesn't even matter. I'm sure lots of schools have a past they would like not mention. His mistakes also do not possess transitive properties that taint all students that have attended LU or his son that took over after his death. Steve touched on this but even in conservative christian circles LU is pretty liberal. Look up PCC or BJU and see what a truly conservative school does.
     
  9. rebel100

    rebel100 New Member

    One reason I picked WGU over other MBA options was the lax admission standards....they didn't require any pre reqs, took me as I was. I suppose that makes Liberty better? IDK, business card says MBA.... :) I have never been asked where I got it.
     
  10. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Only one of those has anything to do with religion (number 3).

    It isn't a matter of religion, in my opinion, that Liberty chooses to discriminate against its non-theological faculty.

    Brandeis is a Jewish university and yet, they allow non-Jews to teach there. The University of Scranton is a Catholic university and yet, it's theology department had an Episcopalian priest and an Orthodox Rabbi teaching courses on Protestantism and Judaism, respectively (also, I had a number of professors in other areas who were non-Christian).

    Saying a non-Christian accountant could not possibly teach at Liberty University has no basis in theology. It's really just plainly discriminatory. I didn't say that Liberty is the only one doing it. I didn't say Liberty is the only offender in the world. But, of the choice between WGU and LU, only one says that a Jew can't teach Accounting or an agnostic can't teach human resources.

    To you it clearly does not. To me it would. You don't really have the right to tell me that Jerry Falwell being dead (and, with any hope, suffering immeasurably in the worst part of hell) "doesn't matter" because that's a personal decision. Just like I can't tell you that Jerry Falwell's racist past "matters." To some people it matters and to others it doesn't. I wasn't asked to pass moral judgment on the institution. I was asked to share my opinion.

    You, in fact, actively solicited my opinion of why I would choose WGU over LU. I shared it. That doesn't mean that no one should ever select LU. The OP will ultimately make a decision based upon his own conscience. But no, you spouting off about how much you love Liberty University football is not going to change my mind.

    And I suppose we can all speculate as to whether Jerry Falwell actually reformed or whether he simply recognized it was no longer trendy to be a segregationist. That, I will concede, doesn't really matter at this point. But, to me, the university's bricks were built upon a foundation of hatred. And a regional ranking of #80 isn't really enough to wash those bricks clean for me.


    And you know what? Many more schools have absolutely nothing in their past to be ashamed of. I would argue that WGU is one of them.


    ISIS says that Hamas should be destroyed because they don't practice true Islam. Just because one extremist group is reviled by another extremist group doesn't really make the first one not an extremist group.
     
  11. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    [​IMG]
     
  12. lawrenceq

    lawrenceq Member

    You guys should play nice.

    Jerry Falwell once said, 'If it's Christian, it ought to be better." That quote right there is enough to make the OP pick Liberty over WGU. :sasmokin:
     
  13. Maniac Craniac

    Maniac Craniac Moderator Staff Member

    As a Christian, I am disappointed that the notion does not remain unchallenged that there is, in actuality, anything "Christian" about this school.

    Not that it really matters, but you know, that's kinda the road that this thread has gone down. :eek:fftopic:

    Years ago, I decided to distance myself from the word "creationist" since- in the way it is typically used- it doesn't seem to actually have anything to do with whether or not the universe, and life, were created. In fact, I've seen that a lot of people who self-identify as both Christian and creationist are either speechless or offended when I show them the differences between what "creationism" teaches and what the Bible actually says. Likewise, a lot of people who enjoy talking down creationists are equally surprised to see what the Bible actually says.

    I guess I'm back to the same point I've repeated in so many posts before it, that in my experience, hardly anyone who has strong, sweeping, feelings either way about the Bible base their opinions on what's written in it.
     
  14. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    There are different schools of creationism. Young Earth creationism claims to be a literal interpretation of the Bible. Old Earth creationism says that some of the wording in the Bible is figurative.
     
  15. curtisc83

    curtisc83 New Member

    I can't keep going back and forth I've got a life to live. This is one of those topics very few people budge on. My opinion is LU over WGU for the reasons I stated in this thread. This all boils down to personal preference and the OP should research both schools for themselves. Maybe some of this info can give the OP good topics to search and decide for himself.
     
  16. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    Basically correct, except that both schools of thinking take the Bible to be literal. The young earth school believes that God pulled it off in seven literal calendar days (as in one week), while the old earth school interprets “day” to mean an era (as in “the day of the Lord”).

    Interesting side note relevant to distance education: There is a school in California called the Institute for Creation Research, founded by one Henry Morris, a well-known young earth apologist. Morris and ICR sued the California Department of Education for the right to grant masters degrees in creation science – in other words, to teach creationism as an actual science and grant graduate degrees in the field – and they won.

    So, you may ask, what does this have to do with distance education? Well, Henry Morris also founded an accrediting association that would hold, as one of its requirements, that schools earning their accreditation subscribe to the young earth doctrine. The name of that accreditor? TRACS.

    Since I don’t follow the TRACS story these days, I cannot tell you if they have let any old earth schools into their happy family, but when I wrote When the TRACS Stop Short several years ago, one of the arguments I made was that in recognizing TRACS, US-DoEd was violating Constitutional principles by preferring one doctrinal system over another. The Chronicle of Higher Education stated that my book hung up their reapproval for two years (I tend to believe the Chron), and TRACS did straighten its act up sufficiently enough to get reapproved by DoEd.

    By the way, the apologetics professor at a school at which I taught for several years, Biblical Seminary (RA and ATS), was an old earth guy, having earned his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Cornell. As for me, I never particularly gave a crap about which doctrine is correct, as I consider that a non-essential doctrinal point (like whether you’re baptized by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion).

    The point, however, is that lots of folk do feel strongly about the non-essential doctrines, and when you enroll in one of their schools, even if you don’t buy into their perspective you should at least honor their right to believe as they do without whining about it.
     
  17. pakrz

    pakrz New Member

    Again, very good discussion in here and I appreciate the back and forth of it. The very mention of LU, no matter where you look, always seems to hinge of particular religious beliefs. On a personal level, I'm a skeptical believer (If there's such a thing) and am a bit uncomfortable with religion being inserted into every class. As far as academics for each school, I think both universities will serve me well for what I'm seeking. Like I stated in my original post, I completely understand that neither school is prestigious. If that were my goal, I certainly wouldn't be looking at either one of them.

    For the record, I put little weight into the whole B & M versus an online university setting. Times are changing rapidly with higher education and a physical campus doesn't carry as much weight as some people want to believe. I also put little stock into alumni or sports teams. After all, I'm an diehard Arizona Wildcat fan and don't see that changing much at all.

    With that said, I respect both schools but am pretty certain I'm going to roll with WGU. It's full accredited, highly affordable, and I can accelerate through the degree program. I also like the concept of having mentors to assist with the educational journey. As for the major, I leaning towards the Leadership/Management program. I think it will suit me well in my current field (Law enforcement) and transition well to different career field when I "retire", whatever that field will be.
     
  18. pakrz

    pakrz New Member

    The information has been very helpful and I appreciate the back and forth. As I stated before, I have personal hangups with the integration of religion into every course at LU and I don't think that's something I can just gloss over. I also put little weight into alumni or a sports program.

    With that said, my arrow is pointing directly at WGU for grad school. It's affordable, it's accredited, and I can accelerate through a degree program. I've also decided that a MS - Leadership/Management degree makes the most sense for me. It will help me in my current field and should be marketable when I "retire."
     

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