Chancellor, recruiters laud LU’s rapid growth

Liberty University’s spring resident enrollment this year topped the 10,000 mark for the first time.

LU currently has 9,339 resident undergraduate students and 716 resident graduate students enrolled for spring semester, bringing the total to 10,055. (Resident enrollment includes students living on campus and commuters.)

Last spring LU had a total of 9,005 resident students.

The current enrollment figures were released last week by Lawrence C. Shackleton, the school’s registrar and vice president for administrative information management.

LU is expecting resident enrollment in the fall to climb to about 11,200. This past fall about 10,500 resident students were enrolled.

“The Resident Recruitment Department has again broken a historical marker by achieving an unprecedented student body enrollment with amazing support from the chancellor, administration, and staff,” said Chris Johnson, LU’s executive director of resident recruitment. “Our efforts have been blessed yet again and the entire team knows that this is a God thing.” Chancellor [Jerry Falwell Jr.] has stated “if momentum continues as it has for the past two semesters, we will be in a position to close off fall enrollment for the first time in LU’s history before June.”

Falwell Jr. credits LU Christian focus for its rapid growth.

“Transfer students have chosen Liberty this semester,” he said. “We take seriously the responsibility to provide a quality education to these students and we are determined to make a positive difference in their lives with God’s help. The sheer number of students who are choosing Liberty is evidence that Christian education is sorely needed in today’s world. LU’s Distance Learning Program also saw a surge in spring enrollment and number of credit hours taken.

A total of 18,483 students are currently enrolled in distance learning courses compared with 11,501 last year.

DLP students are collectively taking 145,259 credit hours compared with a total of 85,035 credit hours last spring.

A total of 22,757 individuals have been enrolled in distance learning courses in either the fall or spring semester.

Earlier this month, a survey by the Online Education Database ranked LU’s Distance Learning Program as the third best in the nation.