This is why America is losing ground. Teaching complete nonsense does not deserve either tax money or accreditation. Does anyone think this is the bullshit being taught to Chinese or Indian students? No! They are being taught to think, not ape idiocy!

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?!

I'm uneasy with giving tax money to ANY school operated by a religious institution. Given our Constitution, there's every reason to have a bias in favor of purely secular education. This corrosion of the establishment clause over the years, through one rationalization after another, should never have been allowed, but I guess that's politics for you. Perhaps if our Supreme Court didn't have six Catholics on it, there might be a chance they would actually do something about it.

That said, the first life on Earth might be a place where you could marvel at how those first organic compounds and processes came to be, and what the first living cell must have looked like. But, science and math hold more probability of an actual explanation than, "And then a miracle occurred!" Either that or God is nothing more than the million-monkeys-Shakespeare paradigm shifted to organic chemistry, lightning, and cosmic rays over a billion elapsed years.

Sounds like the government is subsidizing a program that is basically a scam to part Christian students from their funds whilst harvesting more federal dollars (in the form of financial aid) on the back end.

In terms of dollars flushed, the subsidy is likely only half the story.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that Pell Grant money isn't a "gift" - it's for loans that will be repaid by the students. Right?

@3 -federal dollars don't go directly to the school. Prospective students receive federal student loans (in this case Pell grants) and then use that money to enroll in a school.

So, as with Notre Dame or BYU, so with Liberty. It'd be hard to make the argument that "your crazy religion-affiliated school is a little too crazy, so no federal dollars for you."

Now as for accreditation, that's a whole different ball of wax. Liberty is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which is a real-deal accrediting organization (unlike the gray-market accreditation orgs. that credential some of the more egregious diploma mill online "universities"). It's hard to see their accreditation getting pulled for teaching mythology as science, as frustrating as that may be.

C'mon, 5280, that program's been around since you and I were both dewy youths, surely you realize it doesn't have to be repaid.

It's purely need-based, and the recent (sorely needed, in my view) efforts to expand the grant pool have resulted in some unintended consequences - technical and 'ligious schools diving in feet-first being a couple of the more challenging.

But overall I have to say, I don't think we have a basis to complain that the government is investing too heavily in ANY education. Especially the Pells, originally meant to include prisoners to reduce recidivism. Can't dive in too deep, in my view. I'd rather have fundies at least getting some education at a bottom-rung accredited school than refusing to go to any...

So let's take a moment to acknowledge the splendor of the late, great, mildly eccentric Claiborne Pell, who in addition tot he grants also gave us the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

@5 - I was thinking that too, and also, isn't it the students who are making the decision to spend their Pell grants at LU? Is it the government's fault they're choosing to go there?

Don't get me wrong, I don't like the Christian pod-people factories either. Just trying to be clear.

Whoops, grants, not loans. Got it. But my other point still stands, I think.

Stafford loans are the big FSA loans - those are the ones fueling speculation about a student loan bubble.

Perhaps I have not thought it through, but this seems like a cultural problem, not a policy problem. While I think it is egregious that more federal dollars go to a 'university' that teaches hogwash than goes to public broadcasting, I can't see any clear policy line that would solve the problem without creating others.

Sadly we live in a society where a significant portion believe in a literal, biblical world-view and that NPR stands for National Pinko Radio.

The only sollution I can think of: move to Canada.

@9: No, the student gets the grant THROUGH the university. You don't get a chunk of cash and then choose what college you want to spend it on.

wat

12 My brother's-in-law....

My brother-in-law's....

The father of my sister's husband calls CNN the Communist News Network. Angrily.

They have an online program? Greeeat. Now you can get a religious pseudo-education and slide into intellectual mediocrity from the comfort of your own home, anywhere in the country!

Didn't Bush hire DOJ lawyers from Liberty? There was a whole hullabaloo about how they were avoiding the Yales or Harvards or any 2nd and 3rd tier school in the case of Liberty. And Obama chose not to fire Bush's civil servants and appointees in DOJ? Yay.

So, take NPR and turn it into a department at a school.

Canada was a good suggestion.

But even they are cutting their arts and grants for education.

@19:

Well I guess that all depends on who gets elected into a majority in Parlaiment next month.

@17 This one of my greatest disappointments in Obama. Bush spent 8 years driving off professionals in gov't an replacing them with incompetent diploma mill fundies. Obama should have thrown all of them out, but instead our gov't is still full of them!

Going back two links to the original story you learn that Liberty has 150 employees in their financial aid department, versus the four that a more respectable church school in the same town has. Clearly, its a scam solicting people who need aid and providing help so they ultimately get the money. There's no extra cost to Liberty when someone signs up for an online class so its pure proffit.

It reminds me of another scam churches run. They'll advertise for people who are getting ready to declare bankrupcy. If you're $100,000 in debt and you only have $10,000 give it to us before your creditors get it and we'll get you into heaven when you die.

Maybe there should be a regulation about the percentage enrolled in an online college that are receiving aid.

@18: http://imagemacros.files.wordpress.com/2…

Yet another reason why for-profit education should be dismantled, and why the wall between church and state should be strengthened daily. For-profit schools and organized religion are blatant frauds, run by people who have only their own best interests in mind.

@18: Were you drunk when you posted that comment?

I know people in the area, and currently there is a petition to the IRS to have Liberty's tax exempt status revoked. In the last two congressional elections, they blatantly (and there is a lot of evidence for this that I can dig up if I need to) used their tax-exempt school resources to campaign for the republican candidate (and trash the Democratic candidate). There is little hope it will go through without some internet/worldwide rage over it because of how big a player they are in the local politics scene, but at least people are trying.

@13, Actually, Pell Grants are allocated by the Feds, as soon as you complete your FAFSA online. Colleges may match this money in various ways, and letters are being sent now to high school seniors with financial aid packages. Once you choose which school you're going to, and enroll, then the Pell money goes directly to the college. Plus any loans and other scholarships. You're right in that no student receives a check for their Pell grant money.

What concerns me is that Pell Grants go right to the school at the beginning of the term, so the school gets paid no matter whether the student completes any classes, much less earns a degree. I'd rather see a Pell Grant being disbursed at the END of the term, so that the school has a real motivation to see that poor students complete their courses.
The current system makes it way too easy for places like Liberty to sign up hundreds of students in "online" programs (read: no classrooms, no materials, just a web site and a warm body to "teach"), collect the Pell grants, then watch the students drop out while laughing all the way to the bank.

Gus, I'm looking forward to a nice stiff drink tonight. When I do, I'll drink to Pell!

Meanwhile, students at North Seattle Community College (and most of Seattle's other CC's) can't get Pell Grants through the school.

This is a decent way to save $500Million. But There is a MUCH better way to balance the budget. Remove the tax exempt status of all churches. I suspect that would increase revenue more than increasing taxes on the rich or the middle class.

I love Dan, but one thing you have to consider is that you'll be hard pressed to find a school anywhere without pronounced political biases...left or right, Socialist, Reactionary...Whatever! Anything you say against them could easily be turned against you. I went to Jesuit school, art school, and ultimately, online school through CareerSchoolAdvisor's program. Online for me was the most neutral and lest conducive to arguing. And it made everything easier. http://www.careerschooladvisor.com