In some sectors GTF has some credibility. It was once endorsed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (decades ago). Since then it has deviated from its Catholic/Anglican base and added Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist related degree programs. Its current President is Methodist with interfaith interests and they have added an Animal Ethics program. I find their $20,000 dollar price tag to be rather exorbitant for an unaccredited program. I suppose that they are not over charging if that is what people are willing to pay but I don't get it. There are affordable doctoral programs out there like Cumberlands, Liberty or Calsouthern and you are coming pretty close to that price tag. I get that subject matter and theological leanings may keep you away from those offerings. Are there lower price and credible unaccredited programs like GTF (in that kind of mainline, liberal leanings sort of way)? I think California used to have some of those type of schools in their State Approved innovative/experimental days.
Was going to say that GTF suffers from too many faculty with highest degrees coming from GTF. But, they seem to have diversified their faculty more of whom hold doctorates from other (accredited institutions). https://www.gtfeducation.org/faculty-staff/faculty.cfm
Good thing this isn't named World Theological Foundation. That said, GTF degrees are probably meant to impress some people, not me, so what do I know? They definitely have some graduates who are otherwise pretty impressive. Among all kinds of Catholic clergy, there's one Jorge Macias Cespedes in Puerto Rico: https://blog.gtfeducation.org/doctoral-defense-in-puerto-rico/ This appears to be the very same guy who is listed on a website for St. Gregory Nazianzen Institute as Interim Dean of Undergraduate Studies, as Rasophore-Monk Maximos: https://orthodox-institute.org/faculty Interestingly, his GTF degree is not listed (he apparently has a STL from the Angelicum). Instead, he is listed as "D.Sc., cand. (in Eastern Christian Studies), St. Gregory Nazianzen Institute via Collaborative Agreement with Carpathian University, UA". CU (or more exactly, Uzhgorod Theological Academy) was criticized for the fact some random clergy getting advanced degrees there suspiciously fast, and some prominent people accused them of plagiarism. Nevertheless, CU (and UzhTS at CU) is fully accredited, and ran by a shifty guy who is nevertheless a Bishop in good standing (not according to the Russians) with even more doctorates than Fr. Andrew the Rector of St. Gregory. I wonder how that collab works, because, again, it's not the norm in Ukraine as far as I know. But IF the norm can be stretched, Bishop Prof. Dr. Dr. CandSc. Viktor and Archimandrite Dr. Dr. Dr. Andrew are definitely the ones who can make it work. Because they LOOK like millists, but these multiple-Dr. degrees both sport are accredited, yo! (Bp. Viktor has some questionable honors, too).
So, I think you need to consider the audience here. Cumberlands and Liberty are both conservative. And CalSouthern doesn't offer PhDs in the sort of religious fields that GTF does. So you're appealing to a very different demographic. Is it priced high? Yep. Is it legit? They teach, for sure. How respected is it? Well, I did a quick search. Here, I found an associate professor who has two doctorates, one from GTF and another from an accredited school. We can say that he got the job using hte accredited degree. Yet, he was still comfortable enough listing it on a faculty profile. So that is something. Here's a Catholic professor whose two doctorates are from GTF, though he has one of the most confusing academic records beyond that so, who knows? But again, comfortable enough listing it on a faculty page at a mainstream school. There's two professors here who have GTF doctorates as their only doctorates and had no problem stacking them on top of M.Divs from Yale and Princton. It's an unaccredited school but it seems to be generally well received. Especially since they did what few unaccredited schools do; they sought out approvals to make the degree more useful. They are approved by the VA. If you have a degree from there you meet the educational requirements to be a VA chaplain. That's a big deal especially in this space. So I wouldn't pay it. But I think if you wanted an unaccredited religious doctorate you could do far worse in terms of what it would do to your resume. EDIT: As an aside, in terms of cost, a graduate certificate at GTF costs $6k. That is around the same cost as a graduate certificate from St Joseph's College of Maine which is accredited and where you could stack up to an M.Div.. You could pay that same $20k but have an accredited degree. Interestingly, SJCME now has an arrangement with "Pontifex University" allowing you to move seemlessly from their accredited M.Div. into Pontifex's unaccredited, but diocesan endorsed, Th.D. program. File this as exhibit EH for "religious institutions care more about religious endorsement than secular accreditation."
Yes....Roman Catholic hierarchy approval backed by 2000 years of history and over a billion Catholics does carry some weight.
Right. And evangelical Christian approval backed by a majority of the religious people in the U.S. carries some weight as well. At the end of the day, all an institution can hope for is that its target audience is satisfied with its outcomes. If the school is religious that satisfaction is more likely to come from matters religious rather than matters temporal (like accreditation).
