With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice

[XemaSab]

Berea College, founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and “poor white mountaineers,” accepts only applicants from low-income families, and it charges no tuition.

At Berea College, in Kentucky, the Ecovillage houses one-parent families. Josh Noah, 21, a senior Appalachian studies major from Mount Airy, N.C., fertilizing the Ecovillage’s vegetable beds.
“You can literally come to Berea with nothing but what you can carry, and graduate debt free,” said Joseph P. Bagnoli Jr., the associate provost for enrollment management. “We call it the best education money can’t buy.”

Actually, what buys that education is Berea’s $1.1 billion endowment, which puts the college among the nation’s wealthiest. But unlike most well-endowed colleges, Berea has no football team, coed dorms, hot tubs or climbing walls. Instead, it has a no-frills budget, with food from the college farm, handmade furniture from the college crafts workshops, and 10-hour-a-week campus jobs for every student.

Berea’s approach provides an unusual perspective on the growing debate over whether the wealthiest universities are doing enough for the public good to warrant their tax exemption, or simply hoarding money to serve an elite few. As many elite universities scramble to recruit more low-income students, Berea’s no-tuition model has attracted increasing attention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/education/21endowments.html?pagewanted=1&ref=us

[HCE SuiGeneris]

1. What the hell?

This institution is in gross violation of capitalistic opportunism for exploiting new entrants into adult society. Shame on them!

Oh, BTW... K & R

[XemaSab]

2. It was founded by abolitionists

What do you expect? :shrug:

[skooooo]

10. I wish more colleges and universities would go this direction...

There's so much money that goes through colleges that isn't used for education.

[tismyself]

3. worth the trip

If you're ever in the area, stop by for a visit. Both the town and the college are really cool.

:loveya: I love the place!

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Sounds really cool!

[Toucano]

5. Fantastic.

I wish I had gone there!

[libnnc]

6. I came within a gnat's hair of going to school there

but I was young and didn't want to leave NC...

I'll always regret that.

Berea is fantastic.

[tismyself]

11. me too

I don't like being away from home at all. I wish we had something like Berea here in NC though.

Well... we do have the John C. Campbell Folk School. Have you ever checked it out? Last I heard from them, and this might have changed by now, but you used to be able to work there for a week or two and then take a week long class for free. Although the problem with that (for me anyway) would be 3 weeks of lost income.

[pnorman]

7. I had heard of that college by name, but hadn't the slightest idea of what sort of place it was.

Thanks for enlightening me! Here's the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berea_College

Knowing of such places in our otherwise Bushified nation, gives me HOPE!

pnorman

[AdHocSolver]

8. When I went to college in the 1960's, I paid $200 for 15 credits per semester.

Most of my instructors were professors. My textbooks cost from $7.00 to $10.00 each. It was a state university. I paid for my college degree with money earned from part-time, and summer jobs, without the need for student loans.

Even accounting for a ten-fold increase due to inflation, the cost of a college education today is absurd for what you get out of it.

What do you get? Unless you have wealthy parents, a pile of student loan debt, and a degree that will help you get a job that could be offshored at any time. An appreciation of art, music, philosophy, literature? At the prices I paid, I could afford to take "leisure" courses such as philosophy and drama. I could afford to spend the time at free music recitals, and spend many hours roaming the nearby art museum. At today's prices, and with the competitive pressures, who has time for cultural activities?

College today is no longer about getting an education. It is about getting a certificate to allow you to compete with a multitude of others in a dwindling job market for work that is mind-numbing and, more and more, can't support a comfortable middle class life style, let alone allow one to prepare for a comfortable retirement.

Berea College sounds great! Sorry for the rant.

[Selatius]

9. In France, an equivalent 4-year degree can cost anywhere between 150 to 700 Euros a year.

It depends on the university itself and the different levels of education (license, master, doctorate). Conceivably, you could get a Masters in five years for between 750 to 3500 Euros.

You see, they fund university education the way the US used to fund university education in previous decades.

I don't foresee the situation changing dramatically anytime soon. The banks make a ton of profit off of student loans, and they will not easily give up the easy profits without a difficult struggle. The only winners with rising tuition costs are the banks because it means more and more students taking out loans, loans that they can charge interest upon.

The banks have successfully subordinated the future of college students to the pursuit of greater profits, and we are all worse off for allowing it to happen.