Liberty University is a school founded on deeply rooted Baptist beliefs and traditions, resulting in the largest evangelical university in the world. However, the school has also become one of the largest online Christian colleges, with the vast majority of its students taking courses via distance learning options. Online course offerings within the school offer degrees in 36 different fields, as well as an opportunity for many Christian students to study from home instead of moving to Virginia.
Due to the rising success as an online Christian college that Liberty has sustained, other Christian colleges have been influenced to expand their course offerings throughout the internet and help attract promising young students to their degree programs. Christian colleges come in a variety of forms although Liberty University depicts one of the most traditional types of Christian colleges, compared to the new classical Christian college that has emerged around the country. Rather than focus on Greek philosophy and condone various doctrines that have emerged, Liberty University offers most distance learning students the chance to earn a slew of degrees without the addition of any particularly religious classes.
Online Christian colleges serve the purpose of allowing students to take classes from home from a college they would feel comfortable in attending if they had the option to move across the country. While the university does not promote religion through its degree programs, its notoriety as a high-profiled Christian university has increased its appeal to many students who wish to attend such a university. Since it began offering online classes, the university has tripled its enrollment, proving to other Christian universities that if they begin to transfer their classes to online credits, they will be able to sustain a higher population of students.
Despite the controversial aspects many of these schools have been debated over, the schools remain profitable institutions and still offer students the comfort of attending an online Christian college. As the network has expanded over the years, students now have more options other than Liberty University, but the school remains one of the top rated online schools despite its Christian background. Offering more than 30 degree programs which rival other online universities, the school has maintained its course schedules and works well with its distance learning students in a way that was unprecedented in the online Christian college community. As more schools pop up every day, it is no surprise that we have begun to find a more niche group of online Christian colleges and before long there will be an online college for every religion, but until that point, Liberty University remains the model for most online Christian colleges today.
