Most students at Berea College in southeast Kentucky graduate debt free. 99% of them are Pell grant eligible, meaning that their families are low or very modest income. Berea was the first coed, interracial college in the South. Most graduates stay in the Appalachian region. There is no tuition at Berea.
All students – regardless of background – work on campus. The college runs a farm, a hotel and restaurant, and a high-quality program of traditional Appalachian crafts. The decision to go tuition-free was made a century ago, and the decision was also made then to begin building a community of donors. The endowment, built over decades, goes entirely to students' education.
I lived in Berea for a time while I was teaching up the hill in rural Appalachia. I danced on steaming summer nights at the college's street contra dances, took visiting family to the restaurant, and gave student-made textiles and wooden bowls as holiday gifts.
In these times of losing so much, I'm delighted to read that Berea remains so intentionally committed to its core values of opportunity and connection to its region.
