Credits in this section usually have very specific procedures to follow, limitations, or are part of a special relationship. This is a unique category for credit types that don’t fit well into the other groups.
Christian Leaders Institute is a non-profit pre-accredited college that offers “free” courses that can be used towards a degree at Liberty University (a non-profit, fully accredited university). Their transfer agreement with Liberty is “why” this entry is on the HS4CC website, but it doesn’t make my list of “30 Ways” in the book because these classes are not worth college credit unless a student attends Liberty. These courses will not transfer to any other regionally accredited college or university.
(Christian Leaders Institute offers their own in-house degree programs, but since those degrees are not regionally accredited, I’ve decided not to include information about them.)
CLI is pre-accredited with the Association for Biblical Higher Education, Commission on Accreditation. This is a US Department of Education recognized accreditation, but not the same as a regional accreditor that would otherwise allow easy credit transfer.
These courses are self-paced (you have 180 days to complete) and offered completely online.
Who should take these courses? Students who will attend Liberty University.
Before your teen attends Liberty University, you can apply resourceful high school planning principles to outsource a lot of the degree in advance. Since Liberty allows you to outsource up to 75% of a bachelor’s degree, careful planning reduces the cost of your teen’s bachelor’s degree while maintaining access to scholarships. When perfectly-planned, a student will apply for admissions and graduation in the same year.
Students planning to attend Liberty can go into Liberty’s website and pull up the courses required for each degree. Search Here. Simply match up courses from Christian Leaders Institute (or CLEP, Sophia, Studycom, etc.) by using the course equivalency guides published by Liberty.
Carrie offers this pro tip: “For families wanting to use Christian Leaders Institute as a backbone for a low-cost degree from Liberty, LUO’s Interdisciplinary degree offers multiple ways to use CLI for (almost) all of the 90 transfer credits – depending on which areas of study you pick. Religion and Social Science can be completed with CLI + LUOA Dual Enrollment… I looked at CLI for general education [courses] and major requirements for an Interdisciplinary degree. Then I went to LUOA DE to see which 10 courses my kid could take there to fill in the gaps and I was able to put together an entire degree plan with those two options.”
It is noteworthy that they offer BIOLOGY, ASTRONOMY, SOCIOLOGY, and PSYCHOLOGY which are generally hard to find from a Christian perspective.
This guide below is OUTDATED as of 2024. I’m leaving it up for quick reference to get an idea of the scope and scale of courses they offer, but to get the CURRENT transfer equivalency, you’ll go onto Liberty’s Transfer Page HERE and select the state of FLORIDA. Christian Leader’s Institute will populate with the current course to course planner.
How it Works
(from CLI website)
These “free” courses can be used for college credit at the Christian Leaders Institute or for non-college credit at Christian Leaders Institute. There are some small fees- see below.
If you are interested, you must enroll in a student account at the Christian Leaders Institute that administers these classes. You will automatically be enrolled in the Christian Leaders Institute’s Getting Started Class that will take you less than two hours to complete. It opens the door to a formal education journey that meets your needs and budget. After you complete the Getting Started Class, you are free to enroll in, complete, and get credit for as many free general education courses as offered.
College Credit: If you want college credit, you must enroll in the Christian Leaders Institute Admissions Class. Courses will be recorded as “pass” on the transcript at Liberty (no grades).
- College Admission/enrollment fee ($125)
- Courses ($0)
- Transcript Processing Fee payable to Christian Leaders for your complete transcript to be sent to Liberty University.
- Pay $25 to CLC if your teen earns and transfers up to 21 credits to Liberty.
- Pay $250 to CLC if your teen earns and transfers more than 21 credits to Liberty.
HS4CC Parent’s Feedback
Sara L. writes “My daughter recently completed her last class at Christian Leaders College/Institete (for a total of 12 UL credits!) She is working toward a degree at Liberty University. I know there have been a few discussions on the facebook groups about the “free” CLC options with their $125 admission fee plus $250 transcript processing fee. Well, I am happy to report that they have changed that transcript fee to just $25 for up to 21 credits! For 22+ credits, it is $250 which is also a significant decrease. I am attaching some screenshots in case you wanted to update the page on your blog. Thanks again for all that you do!”
Kristen C. writes “Once we are further along in the process, we will come back and comment, but for now it’s “so far so good!” on using Christian Leaders 
… takes about a month each, but she (daughter) has an extensive understanding of the Bible, so this really will depend upon many factors. She also listened to the Bible when driving, and sometimes read the transcript instead of watching the video, which hurried it along. If you’ve got minimal Bible knowledge, it will be a much longer timeframe to work though it… No interaction with instructors, completely self-paced, open book exams, with time limit, no retakes.”
Grace C. writes “Overall, I would describe my experience as positive. Classes are well-structured, taught from a Christian worldview, and material is offered in multiple formats. A lot of confusion surrounds the title “Christian Leaders College.” To clear things up, there are essentially three “Christian Leaders” titles, including “College,” “Institute,” and “Alliance.” In order to take courses through CLC, you must make a login (“enroll”) through CLI. This video (https://share.vidyard.com/watch/kuHNvUAzb5jApWSS89WAFb?) will show you how to get started. I took three classes at CLC (Greek 1, OT Survey, NT Survey), and am in the process of transferring them to Liberty. My official transcript is still being mailed to LU, but the registrar’s office viewed my unofficial transcript, and confirmed that the credits would transfer into Liberty. As of right now, the courses are shown as coming in 3 credits apiece, but I have yet to determine whether the two, 3-credit classes of OT and NT Survey will come in as the single, 4-credit class at LU called BIBL 104. I will update this post when I find out. One of the things I found slightly misleading was the statement that it would only cost $10 to send official transcripts to colleges. This is only true for students who complete the Associate from CLC and wish to transfer it to another institution. What I paid was $50 for the CLC Admission Fee (I got a 60% off coupon for what would normally cost $125), and a $250 “Transcript Processing Fee” for the three classes I took. However, I believe it was well worth it.”