Washington Post calls Liberty ‘evangelical mega-university’

A front-page article in today’s “Washington Post” dubs Liberty University “an evangelical mega-university with global reach.” The article, which features an interview with Chancellor and President Jerry Falwell, Jr., chronicles the school’s “turbocharged” growth and its strides in online education.

“The surging enrollment for a bastion of Christian conservatism in the central Virginia foothills highlights the school as a market leader at the crossroads of religion and higher education,” it reads. “Liberty figured out how to recruit masses of students via the Internet years before elite universities began ballyhooed experiments with free online courses.”

Noting Liberty’s claims as “the largest university in Virginia — with more than double the number of students at No. 2 George Mason — and the largest private, nonprofit university in the country” as well as “the nation’s largest university with a religious affiliation,” the article charts the school’s boom in enrollment, substantial campus transformation, and its financial stability.

“Liberty’s expansion has yielded a river of money,” the article reads. “The university ended 2012 with more than $1 billion in net assets for the first time, counting cash, property, investments and other holdings. That is 10 times what the school had in 2006, putting Liberty in the same financial league as universities such as Pepperdine, Georgetown and Tulane.”

• Read the full article.