[Sly Fox]

Christian colleges flourish in distance learning environment

By Steve Kolowich, Inside Higher Ed

The question facing universities looking to compete in the booming market for online higher education is not so much how to do it, but how to distinguish themselves from the rest. In this, Christian universities appear to have a built-in advantage. And many are seizing the opportunity to expand their footprint.

And here is the LU section ...

Meanwhile, online enrollment at the nonprofit Liberty University has boomed to 45,000 — nearly twice as many online students as the 25,000 that its late televangelist founder, Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr., prescribed as a goal only three years ago, and significantly more than its 12,000 or so on-campus learners.

"More and more Christian schools I know through connections, if they're not already doing (online education), they're talking about it," says Shoe, the Mid-America enrollment executive. "And the market's demanding it."

The combination of America's religious character, its large and well-organized evangelical population, its sophisticated online education market, and the big-tent approach to Christian education taken by many of its faith-based universities has set the stage for rapid expansion of Christian-oriented distance learning, says Garrett, whose firm has worked with universities such as Liberty and Mid-America on their online strategies.

All of this is exciting for evangelicals, says Carlos Campo, the incoming president of Regent University, an institution in Virginia founded by the televangelist and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson that boasts 4,900 students, about 55% of whom are online.

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