Liberty University history

Subsequently, the school’s name officially changed to Liberty Baptist College in 1976 and the colors were changed to red, white, and blue.

The college achieved accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges in 1980.

By 1984, nearly 400 local broadcasters around the nation were carrying “The Old Time Gospel Hour.” The toll-free number flashing on the screen reportedly helped bring in more than $72 million per year in donations.

In 1985 Falwell announced his goal of 50,000 students.

In 1987, it secured tax-exempt status, which Falwell described in his autobiography as an existential necessity: “If a tax exemption could not be granted us,” he wrote, “it would have been impossible to carry out the dream of a 50,000-student Christian university in Lynchburg.”

But things really took off three years later, in 1989, when Sperling started offering M.B.A.s online through Prodigy, the early electronic communications service.

Since 1999, Liberty has had an informal relationship with the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, two of whose members sit on the university board of trustees.

Among the adopters of Sperling’s model was Falwell, who in 2004 began expanding the family’s primitive distance-learning programs into what would become known as Liberty University Online.

In 2005, Barron's Profiles of American Colleges ranked undergraduate admission to LU as "competitive", its fourth-highest of six ranks.

Chris Gaumer taught English courses both on campus and online at Liberty after getting his bachelor’s degree on campus in 2006.

After Falwell's death in 2007, his son Jerry Falwell Jr. became the university's second president.

By 2010, it had more than 50,000 students enrolled and was pulling in more than $420 million annually.

There are no formal quotas — a federal regulation that went into effect in 2011 forbids them.

In 2013, the mall lost one of its anchor tenants, Sears, which occupied a 112,000-square-foot space behind gray, nearly windowless walls.

When it first arrived inside the mall, the L.U.O. operation numbered 675 employees; it grew so large that in 2015 L.U.O. began moving its operation into a former Nationwide Insurance building several miles away.

Since July 1, 2016, the Foundation is taking a more active role in growing assets through fundraising efforts and collaboratively works with the University to oversee a comprehensive development plan.

By 2017, Liberty students were receiving more than $772 million in total aid from the United States Department of Education — nearly $100 million of it in the form of Pell grants and the rest in federal student loans.

At the end of Falwell Jr.'s presidency in 2020, the university listed over $2.5 billion in assets.