A liberal elective has to fall into guidelines that the university sets. For instance at Drexel a liberal elective may be in philosophy, history, ethics, language, music, political science, etc. Though restrictions include that the language course has to be above a certain level, music courses are theory and not instruction, etc. Some majors may incldue specific requirements. For instance as an ECE major I must at some point take an economics course.
A free elective is basically any course you want to take.
