Liberty University vs Excelsior

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Calibuddafly, Sep 17, 2009.

Loading...
  1. PerpetualStudentJay

    PerpetualStudentJay New Member


    Great insight. I'll have to bookmark that website in case I attend there. Thank You.
     
    chrisjm18 likes this.
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    No, I was thinking of Liberty. But I think I confused two ideas, in that they don't make their DL students sign that conduct pledge. (I'm probably wrong about that, too!)
     
  3. Acolyte

    Acolyte Active Member

    This is just one reason why I would have a hard time choosing Liberty as an acceptable program. Like others have said, a degree from Liberty may (or may not - perhaps depending on what part of the country you are located in) be tinged with some unnecessary political, cultural, or academic "baggage" - and precisely for this reason. My graduate degree is from a Christian college, but as a distance learner, on-campus conduct codes didn't have much of an effect on me, and other than the admin emails that were often imbued with Christian language, the academics of the program never asked or required that we tie our studies back to any kind of religious worldview. A couple of my cohort were teachers working in Christian education so they DID incorporate some of that into their projects, but it was an individual choice - the courses were focused on the academic material. Having said all of that, I know that my feelings about Liberty are my own biases - for some reason, I wouldn't find a degree program nearly as vexing coming from a Catholic college - but I tend to have the impression that Catholic colleges are inherently non-secular academic institutions, while Liberty is inherently a bellicose political institution masquerading as an academic institution. :-(
     
  4. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    Liberty, like any other institution of HIGHER EDUCATION, is not for everyone.
     
  5. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    You should feel comfortable putting a degree on your wall or your LinkedIn or whatever without shame. There was a time, at the height of the Obama administration, where I was really feeling like my "for-profit" degrees were going to get pulled out from under me. The scene was tense and the rhetoric was getting more and more extreme. Yet, when the dust settled, it did not come to pass. Despite having a better option for both my bachelors and my masters, I still display my original CTU/UMT degree combo on resumes. I could just claim my Scranton sandwich ( UScranton/TESU/UScranton ) but I don't because I don't feel any shame in my credentials.
    if you can't feel that way about a school whether it is because of their profit structure or accreditation or religious affiliation or their sports team, then don't go there. Simple as that.

    For me, Liberty v Excelsior would be a good indicator that I would need to look for other options. Excelsior is fine. But it is expensive and the name is utter trash in New York. Within the Empire state Excelsior is about as well regarded as Phoenix. Liberty would be the lesser of two evils here for many people. If your goal is to get a job as a legal intern at a major LGBT advocacy group? Ehh, maybe not the best choice for you?

    Set the goal. Get the degree that helps you get to the goal. The rest is all just chatter.
     
  6. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    I like Liberty University for its reputation, name, and location with brick and mortar campus. However, I do not like religious integration into the program. While Excelsior College, the name does not appeal to me as educational credential. It sounds like a kindergarten program academy, or maybe I have seen EXCELSIOR UNIVERSITY.
     
  7. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I'm sorry you felt that. I didn't think it was that extreme, but I did tire of people bashing for-profit schools without really knowing what they were talking about.
    I find this surprising. This was not the case when it was run by the Regents.
     
  8. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    There are over 5,300 colleges and universities in the U.S. If you don't like Liberty's Christian worldview, attend a secular school. It's that simple!

    FB_IMG_1608221326682.jpg
     
    Acolyte likes this.
  9. Acolyte

    Acolyte Active Member

    The whole "for-profit" school tag became a catch-all phrase for a lot of big problems - many of which had less to do with the schools themselves and a lot to do with lazy, entitled, ignorant "students" that thought a degree from ITT Tech or Full Sail was going to be a lot easier than going to school at a nearby university. Some of that is on the school - with minimal acceptance standards, "easy approval" high-interest financing, and targeted marketing that emphasized an "anyone can do it" messaging strategy - they focused their appeal on people that were already academically underachieving and probably lacked either the organizational skills (taught or innate), the motivation, or the personal discipline to complete a college level program. While I didn't attend a for-profit school, I have several direct experiences with knowing and/or hiring people that did and family members that attended. Two of these people did VERY well for themselves and made the most out of the opportunities at the schools they attended and had great experiences - including profitable employment and even starting their own successful businesses. Their assessment of their own programs were that the instructors were knowledgeable and passionate and that the material was strong and well delivered, yet they said their fellow classmates to a great degree were lazy, unmotivated and didn't take the work seriously, and that many dropped out. The other two people I know did poorly. They did exactly what the successful folks said - they skipped classes, they missed assignments. They borrowed the money, then didn't drop classes in time when they were overwhelmed and ended up paying for classes they weren't taking and ended up FAILING those classes (instead of dropping them) and eventually either dropped out or were let go from their schools - while having racked up significant debts for uncompleted degrees...and of course, they blamed the schools completely, when it was really in a VERY large part - their own doing. Formal education is really just a guided opportunity to self-educate. You have to be invested in it and it requires discipline and prioritization. I do truly believe "anyone can do it" - but there are some foundational skills that you need to develop first, and a web of accountability that will keep you focused.
     
  10. not4profit

    not4profit Active Member

    I would argue that many other universities are political on the other side of the spectrum. However, I agree that Liberty is overly political, but at the end of the day, the education in the one Liberty program I have experienced has been as high quality as the two state schools and the top 50 private school I attended. So, how much of a masquerade can it really be when they are delivering the educational product as promised? It isn't like the instructors are pushing a political agenda in class (unlike the more liberal school I attended).
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2020
  11. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    "Regents" had the distinction of bearing the name of one of the most respected bodies in the state and in sharing that name with New York's sort of...unique diploma system for high school.

    In New York, you can earn a regular diploma or a Regent's Diploma. You earn the latter after passing a series of comprehensive exams in high school. It is held up as a more prominent high school diploma. However, outside of New York I don't think it matters. In theory, however, it would be a sort of minimum requirement in applying to a prestigious school in-state. As these schools accept students from around the world, however, I doubt even here it offers very much utility other than some bragging rights for proud parents.

    Everyone who ever attends a New York school (public or private) comes across the word "regent" at one point or another. As most professional licenses (social work, medicine, dentistry, accountancy, veterinary, psychology, teachers et al) are awarded by the Department of Education, this also means that most licensed professionals bear a very handsome certificate in their offices whereby their authority is established to practice their craft within the state. And who, at the top of that certificate, so authorizes them? Why, the Board of Regents of the State University of New York, of course.

    It sounds cool. And there's a reason why graduates of Regents, in my experience, say they have a degree from Regents College instead of Excelsior the same way throngs of Kaplan grads are now able to claim degrees from Purdue Global.

    Excelsior, which is New York's state motto (Ever Upward, for those who don't feel like googling it), is a fine name. However, the school itself has the same sort of generic "online college" website that gets it lumped in with the University of Phoenix and others. It's break from being a state university delivered a massive blow to its credibility. It is perceived by many to be a for-profit school and I have heard many a professional questioning if it was "a real school" because, again, most people don't actually understand or care to learn how accreditation works.

    FWIW, SUNY Empire State is undeniably a state school and has only a slightly better reputation. The main reason for this, I suspect, is that New York has been steadily breaking down the SUNY brand. Instead, the SUNY schools each promote themselves as standalone institutions and have largely dropped "SUNY" from all marketing material. SUNY Binghamton became Binghamton University. SUNY Buffalo became the University at Buffalo. A few seem to be holding onto SUNY, Cortland for instance. But the more prominent schools wanted to elevate themselves above the SUNY label as they fancied themselves "Public Ivies."

    No one seems to hold any ill will toward Empire State, mind you. It;s just that I've seen on these boards people swooning over the SUNY brand. Within New York it is well known as a non-traditional school and, I would say, considered a "check the box" degree that is often held by professionals who hit a ceiling because of their lack of degree and SUNY ESC allowed them to "check the box" to move forward. It is "neutrally regarded" I suppose you could say. In New York, though, the biggest challenge is that people VERY much identify their education with their geographic location. ESC is omnipresent, often with an office either on campus of other SUNY schools or sometimes in rented facilities nearby. There is (or was) a SUNY ESC office in Ithaca, for example, in the shadow of Cornell which, itself administers multiple state colleges under its umbrella. But that also means that ESC lacks a home of its own which means people seem to be capable of being only so proud of their degree from there.

    Interestingly, Alfred State College (which up until recently was a 2 year school), had some of the most loyal alumni I had ever seen. It is not uncommon for people who studied there and went on to earn bachelors degrees from other schools to identify first as Alfred State alumni before any other school they attended.

    tl;dr New York is weird
     
  12. lawrenceq

    lawrenceq Member

    Liberty definitely not for everyone. In a management class I had to write a discussion board post describing what type of leader Moses was. In an international business class I had to write a post describing a time international business was conducting in the Bible. I had several topics to choose from but those are examples of topics I wrote about.

    Outside of that, Go Flames!
     
  13. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    I made a YouTube video talking about Liberty's Christian worldview. See link to my YouTube channel in my signature.
     
    newsongs and Mac Juli like this.
  14. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    We did it, we did it Joe... oops, I mean Flames Nation. Excelsior has nothing on us.

    Screenshot_20201227-034728_Outlook.jpg
     

Share This Page