Liberty U blocks website: it reveals how much federal money the school gets

I'm with you on this. I don't see what the big deal is.

 

Can't the same be said for most of the things that make it to the "news"? The majority is not newsworthy yet they are "spinworthy".

 

James_Lankford

Good point.

 

By revealing private information that most universities choose not to reveal. How would you feel about me if I found your personal information and published it? You would not necessarily have something to hide, but you would feel that I am working against you in some way. LU is a private university, as they said, and they do no care to share that kind of information, that's fairly typical. Moreover, as I said before, there is nothing to be ashamed of when a large school receives a substantial portion of its income from student loans. How else would students fund their education? There are not many students who can afford an education out-of-pocket. This is no different from any other school; most of them get a majority of their income from the results of student loans, grants, Etc. Moreover, Liberty's tuition is lower than most schools offering similar programs, so it's difficult to make a case for them abusing student loans. The article is damning them with nothing more solid than assumptions.

 

This forum has become very interesting, with some great observations, like SurfDoctor's above. Liberty is a wonderful example of how a private, religious non-profit university can run a wildly successful distance learning program. The uproar and predujice against both distance learning and private sector (for-profit) education, along with our sagging enconomy, has caused people to fixate upon Title IV federal student grants and loans (which is a good thing). However, the fact that students attending Liberty (or Capella, Walden, etc. for that matter) receive large amounts of federal monies tells only a small part of the picture.

According to the California Legislative Analyst's Office, the 2010-11 general fund (Prop 98) allotment for Caliofrnia Community Colleges is nearly $4 billion with local property taxes contributing almost $2 billion more (total $5.895 billion). This is the largest, but not the only, source of state and local public funds. Given that the community colleges, at $5,321 annual public spending per student, is the lowest funded of the higher ed systems (CSU is 11,722 per student and UC is 22,920 per student), we are talking BIG money here.

 

Sorry, but that is complete and total misinformation. As a moderator on a well-known DL discussion forum, you may want to considering revising that post, because it is demonstrably false. Perhaps you should check with the other moderators on this one.

The reality is that Federal government expenditures are about as public as information can get -- the exact opposite of "private". In fact, the lead sentence of the offending news story stated this explicitly:

Want to see how public US DoE data is? Just go their "College Navigator" website and look up any US school that you like, including Liberty. Click on the "Financial Aid" tab and get the numbers for "Grants/Scholarship Aid", "Pell Grants", and "Federal Student Loans". You will quickly see that LU is in the $100,000,000+ range just for Pell Grants and Federal loans, and that data is from 2008-09.

 

For one thing, the LU financial aid office, is growing rapidly and is expected to reach 154 employees this year -- it appears to be one of the largest divisions of one of the largest employers in Lynchburg, Virginia (population 75,000). Shouldn't local newspapers report on local growth industries?

And if there was a story, would MIT, Penn State, or UCLA try to censor it?

 

It would certainly be newsworthy, because according to the USDoE College Navigator data, neither MIT, Penn State or UCLA is currently receiving anywhere near $386 million in student loans. If they did, it would be news.

LU (as the original news story points out) is one of the top federal student aid recipients in the country; it dwarfs the other named schools in this regard.

Now, it's true that there are plenty of secular schools with comparable federal loan numbers. But they are predominantly for-profit institutions -- and you certainly can't complain that there has been no news coverage there.

 

no, it would not
students apply for loans !
students approved for loans !
students go to school !

not news

would those other schools ban the story?
I don't know.
Most schools ban ROTC on campus and armed forces recruiters from coming to campus because of the US armed forces policy on homosexuals
Do you think Liberty bans recruiters from the armed forces from campus ?
Columbia University in NYC bans them despite their students claim to protect free speech.
I know a minister who runs a christian student organization at columbia university. A couple of years ago he had to go before some campus "legal" committee because they wanted to ban his group because the club required leaders of the group to be christian.
The committee said requiring the organization's leaders to be of a certain religion was a violation of religious liberty and that the organization was discriminatory. The committee wanted the organization to allow non christians to be leaders or else it would disband the organization and ban it from campus. It took about a month of meetings and being questioned by the club approval committee, but the committee finally consented.

So the point is different schools ban different things.

 

For 2008-09, MIT undergraduates borrowed a total of $ 5,809,768 in student loans.
Data from College Navigator, a public USDoE website.
Note: no private information was breached to bring you this number.

Now, if MIT undergraduates suddenly started borrowing $100,000,000+ instead -- an increase of over 1,500 % -- then yes, it would be newsworthy. I definitely think that a change of this magnitude at a prominent university would merit coverage by the local press (hypothetically, of course).

And I also found the LU story to be interesting and newsworthy. I had no idea that LU students received nearly half a billion dollars in federal aid last year, so this was certainly news to me.

Exactly which "assumptions" in the original news story are "damning" ?

This issue has certainly generated a lot of negative publicity in various publications for LU. But the original news story in the Lynchburg News & Advance -- the one that actually inspired LU to crack down -- appears to purely factual, based on public USDoE information and an interview with LU's own Executive Director of Financial Aid. Where are the "damning assumptions" ?

 

Well, here's a hint.

It's certainly true that there are some schools (not "most") that don't allow ROTC or military recruiters on campus.

And it's also true that there are some schools that have issues with religious discrimination by student clubs.

But can you name a single school that won't acknowledge or allow news coverage of these issues?

 

Just for the record, MIT students will never be even close to borrowing even 1/10 what Liberty students do. I'm actually surprised it is as much as it is. MIT has a meritocratic system, you get in you will get the aid needed to attend. Most students at MIT borrow next to nothing because of the aid packages given by the Institute. Sometimes I wish they did it that way here.

 

And yet you are saying that LU is deliberately trying to suppress this information? Your logic is faulty there. I'm not saying the information can not be found, I'm saying that Liberty possibly did not appreciate the article and possibly chose to boycott, which was a bad idea that they later recanted. Moreover, there is absolutely no evidence to support that the newspaper was blocked specifically because of the article. It's possible that it was blocked for some completely different reason. Once again, Liberty is being condemned because of outside assumptions. Read this article carefully and you will notice that they don't actually know why Liberty blocked the website. Also notice that it was only blocked for one day.

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/r...ances-website/

CalDog, I would appreciate it if would you keep your comments civil, the above were not.

 

All business take actions that might not seem like the best idea (knee jerk reaction) and change their mind later. In the Tampa area the St Petersburg Times ran an "unkind" article about Columbia Healthcare. It was true and nothing "wrong" but it brought up things that people could spin either way. The hospital chain (at the time 300+ facilities strong) pulled all advertising from the paper and any affiliated papers. This lasted for several months and they later started doing business with them. Things happen, people react - we are all human -, and thing are brought to light - good or bad-, and they are dealt with and forgotten.

If you do not like Liberty's policies (or any other school), just speak with your wallet and go else where.

 

Reading through this thread has caused me to wonder about a few things... and I apologize if someone brought this up already and I missed it.

1. Why are many people in the US hesitant to outwardly subsidize higher education, but willing to take money directly in the form of loans?

2. If students are are ending up with $100,000 or more in student loans for an education that might not benefit them much if they end up working in a coffee shop or grocery store (like most college grads I know), wouldn't it make more sense to include higher education in our tax system (like public schools, libraries, etc) and provide higher education for free or very cheap (like in Europe, Australia, Japan, and many other areas)?

3. Maybe I should be posting this in the "Education bubble thread."

4. If any university can educate hate and spread harmful propaganda, religious or not, and still keep their accreditation, I don't see why we should be surprised at their blocking of any form of website. I'm not trying to speak badly about LU, so please don't be offended if you're a student/alumni. I am merely making light of discrepancy. I am also surprised how a school can publish harmful and misleading information about minorities and still keep their accreditation, but that is a topic for another thread.

 

P.S. Just making sure that people know this part of the comment was not about LU, but another school.

 

This is kind of my point. The education is subsidized anyway, whether the choices for the education are good or not, or whether or not working in the field of education ends is the outcome. The money provided up front by the government is tax payer money. A LOT of taxpayer money! It gets paid back with interest, but if education was available that was tax-funded and cheaper, it would be paid back eventually anyway... and much quicker.