Liberty Home Bible Institute - a possible alternative?

Greetings to all:

It has been awhile since I have posted on this forum, so I hope everyone is doing well!

The reason for this post is that I have several questions in which I could not think of a better place to have them answered, other than the fine educated people on DegreeInfo.com.

Unfortunetly, at this time it appears that I will not be able to continue studying at Trinity College of the Bible (Yes, I know, Iknow, Trinity is not everyones favorite Bible college)
because, within the last year, I have been and continue to be my soon to be 95 year old grandmothers only care giver, which has really put a damper on quality study time.

Consequantly, this has caused me not to be able to meet any type of time limits in finishing my courses. And to top it all off, I longer have a test proctor, and I have not been able to find anyone else.

Therefore, I started looking at other options, such as Liberty Home Bible Instsitute (LHBI)

It's not studying for a "Degree", but Liberty is "RA" AND "TRACS" accredited, which may allow me to transfer credits later to repursue a "Degree" sometime in the future.
Other benefits is that there are no time limits and all tests are open book.

I am sorry for the long post, but if there is or was any body out there who experienced this same kind of situation, and or if there is anyone who has been a student of Liberty Home Bible Instsitute and can give me any info and or comments on (LHBI), I wil be truly grateful!!

 

reply

It sounds to me as if you've got some genuine concerns about being able to finish up with your program at Trinity College of the Bible. There are several things that you need to consider before just changing a program. In regards to whether some like Trinity or not, and I'm not giving you my opinion is not the issue. The issue is that you've started on a program and apparently you've been somewhat satisfied with the program. I realize that you're now taking care of a relative and that this is going to take up more of your time, but to be honest any program is going to take up time in order to complete no matter what your situation.

I'd first find out how far along I am in my program at Trinity. Second, in terms of changing to Liberty Home Bible Institute (not sure if that's exactly right?), I would ask myself is the degree/certificate/diploma for personal enrichment, or would I like to use this credential down the road somewhere (i.e. church, or career). Third, the credits that you'd earn at Liberty Home Bible Institute would only be able to be applied toward a degree at Liberty. It's there policy that they'll consider allowing you to apply 24 credits toward one of there degrees (but they charge a portfolio fee), and this is something to consider.

I'd also think about is there some other relative that you can get or a friend that is able to allow you to take a break from your new responsibilities for a few hours or a day. Perhaps you could get someone to help to give you a little time for yourself. I know that this maybe easier said than done, but all of us need to take a break from things once in awhile, and this is something to consider. I wouldn't also hesitate to talk this over with an advisor at Trinity and explain your situation. Perhaps they could work something out. I know that you've got this new responsibility, but don't allow your dreams and goals to be pushed totally aside because you still need to pursue them no matter what.

In terms of a proctor, you can always get a minister, a librarian, or someone from a local college. In other words, I think that you've got more questions to be answered and to see if there's some way that you can get this all worked out. Good luck, and I hope that this helps. Let us know how you make out.

 

Actually, we talked, at length, about this Liberty Home Bible Institute (LHBI) thing here a while back. You may be able to search for it using this board's SEARCH feature; but since said SEARCH feature has been goofed-up since it got its new server; and since the SEARCH feature, since then, seems to only go back so far; and since I think the thread to which I'm referred was earlier than however far the SEARCH feature goes back, you may not easily be able to find it. If Ted Heiks is reading this, he may know how to find it and can provide a link here. I think you could probably find it "manually" by just searching on my username, and then just paging back, and back and back until you finally find the thread. (Oy... what a pain!)

At any rate, in said thread, I got really serious about investigating the whole business of converting LHBI's "up to 24 hours of credit" into real, accredited college coursework hours. I even spent quite a while on the phone with the LHBI people (after getting jerked around a bit while I tried to find the right person with whom to talk).

And the bottom line is: It's not as cut-and-dried, nor as easy, as it seems. You'd think that Liberty would just convert the LHBI coursework to however many hours of true, accredited college credit to which it's allegedly equivalent merely on the student's request... and, perhaps, willingness to pay some kind of per-hour fee to do so.

But, alas, it's not that simple. The reason the phrase, "up to 24" credit hours is used is because Liberty treats the LHBI coursework just the same as it would any other non-credit coursework from any other college's or university's continuing education department. To convert it to actual for-credit coursework applicable to an actual Liberty degree, one must go through Liberty's portfolio (credit-for-life-experience) process.

Ick!

And, of course, no university can ever promise or guarantee, in advance, precisely how much college credit it will award to someone who goes through its portfolio process... hence the "up to" language.

Actually, as I recall, even more than 24 hours of actual college credit can be garnered from going through the LHBI program. There are additional courses, beyond what's offered in the basic, "up to 24 hours" package. By the time you go through the basic package, and then take the extra courses, I think, if I recall, that just under double the 24 hours is technically possible. But, again, in order to find out, one has to endure Liberty's portfolio process, and then hope against hope that one gets full credit for said LHBI coursework.

It's just not worth it, if you ask me... but that's just me.

I sure wish I could find that other thread... I really covered it in detail, and can no longer remember many of said details. But I know that the gist of it that I've provided here is pretty good.

Um.... lemmee think... if I recall... I think that the person signed-up here as username Busho4 is enrolled in the LHBI program; and that he did so even after having read my aforementioned post. You could do a search on his username here to find a thread -- any thread -- in which he's posted; then click on the "Profile" button at the bottom of any of his posts; then, from the resulting page, either PM or email him and I'm sure he can provide some useful information either privately, or maybe you could get him to come here and post so that everyone can benefit. I have his email address somewhere... I'll see if I can send him an email, point him to this thread, and then we'll see if he'll chime in.

Hope that helps!

 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (remember vinyl?), if you're looking for a reputable, flexible, and affordable Bible degree at the undergrad level I still think that SATS is one of the best deals out there. You could do their BTh and finish up with them -- and not worry about having to transfer units -- and probably save yourself a few dollars.

 

Yes... I've become a SATS fan, too... though more at the graduate and, hopefully soon, post-graduate level. Still, I spent some time one evening really looking at and trying to understand how its bachelors degree works. It was pretty impressive. And, I believe, would do well with a US foreign credential evaluator in the area of having it declared equivalent to a US regionally-accredited bachelors degree.

One thing's for sure, though: SATS sure is cheap (as in "inexpensive" tuition) by US standards. It's hard to ignore that, no matter what!

If I recall, though, SATS -- at least at the bachelors level -- cares about how long you take to complete courses... and will kinda' ride you a little if they think you're not keeping-up your momentum. I think I remember reading something very much like that in the student services area of the SATS web site... no?

I dunno... but I agree that SATS is a decent choice... an objectively very good one, even!

 

Gentlemen, thank you for the replys,

I happen to agree with what all that has been said at this point, I just wanted to get some opinions, if anyone had some. And as I expected, I got some sound advice from you guys.

I'm still hoping to work out my family situation so that I can continue with Trinity, even if I have to get a time extension to finish up my first year of studies. However, if it still doesn't work out I was looking for a possible other direction.

Thanks again, I will continue looking around to see whats out there, including LHBI!

 

Sometimes, I dig up these old threads manually by paging back, back, back as DesElms suggests. And sometimes I've have the threadlinks in a .doc file of old DI threads. In this case, it was located via the search function. Though I couldn't find it searching for "Liberty Home Bible Institute," I did find it searching for "LHBI." It is here: http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19327 .

By the way, Bush04 has graduated LHBI. His academic odyssey at LHBI is chronicled at www.degreeboard.com .

 

LHBI is excellent for what it purports to do-- give the interested person "a Bible college education at home." For me, it worked-- I already had a secular BA, but LHBI allowed me to fast-track my education so that I could attend Semianry a year later. The content was first-rate; in many respects, far superior to what I paid dearly for at Gordon Conwell Theol Seminary. So, if you really want to know the Bible from a moderatley-fundamentalist position, and possibly get some academic credit down the road, this is a good deal.

For others, milegae may vary. For cheap credits, it may serve a use if you're willing to take a Liberty BA. You still have to jump through a portfolio or ICE exam, however.

 

Tom Heiks,

Thank you! I just read through the posts for Bush04 and He seems to say "if I understand him correctly", that upon finishing the entire LHBI program that Liberty would give him 24 credits toward a degree. Interesting!

 

To se94583,

Congrats for finishing LHBI, I am glad to hear it worked out well for you, I will definitely keep what you said in mind!

As far as going through a portfolio or ICE exam to recieve the credit towards a "degree" program, certainly seems worth it, especially for what you have to pay for tuition for LHBI!

Have you recieved your diploma yet? And how does it look?

Thank you!

 

http://www.intouch.org/intouch/site.show_page?p_id=76096&p_devotional_date=09%2F07%2F2005

 

Rich,

Liberty has an AA (and a BA) in Religion, if RA is a concern, why don't you transfer to that program and get out of Trinity?

Libery AA in Religion

BA in Relition

Tuition

I know it's more than Trinity, but . . .

 

It is against TOS and therefore grounds enough to get both Libertarian_Larry and Libertarian_Larry2 thrown out of here.

 

OH, I agree Ted -- but so are his language and vulgarity and . . .

He has some serious problems. And multiple personalities may explain a lot.

I meant my post in support -- not to be combative.

Larry needs to go for many reasons.

 

like to aed or degreeinformation or degreeboard?

 

Actually, my name's Ted Heiks. But I do have an uncle named Tom Heiks. I hope Uncle Tom isn't too insulted by the error.

 

I didn't mean to be combative, either. The issue of multiple identities is probably the least of many reasons to toss Larry, but it is also sufficient reason to toss him.

 

Ted, we are agreeing all over the place.

*poof* begone Larry into bannishment or a dark pit or I don't care, but *poof* go away.

 

Poor Rich -- your thread is now a Larry-mess. I hope you can find the good stuff in it still.