Don’t Take Our Word For It! See What Others Say About Berea College

And the number one college in America, by our lights, is Berea College, a liberal arts school in rural Kentucky. Berea provides moderate-to-low-income students from Appalachia with rigorous academics and valuable work experience while charging [no] tuition. Those students graduate with the lowest average debt levels in the country, many with degrees in socially beneficial fields like nursing, and with post-college earnings $5,000 higher than students with similar backgrounds at other schools.

For more than a decade, the Monthly has produced an annual list of Best Bang for the Buck colleges that foster social mobility and serve the public good….Berea College in Kentucky maintained its position atop the South….

The list covers the 286 most-selective colleges in the country….Here, you see each college’s Pell share for the entering class in 2020-21, compared with the 2010-11 share. Leading the list is Berea College, a Kentucky school that focuses on lower-income students.

Rising tuition and limited financial aid mean borrowing may be necessary to earn a degree. [These] are schools ranked by U.S. News whose students graduated carrying the lightest debt loads.

Berea College isn’t like most other colleges. It was founded in 1855 by a Presbyterian minister who was an abolitionist. It was the first integrated, co-educational college in the South. And it has not charged students tuition since 1892.

Every student at Berea College gets a top-rated education with no tuition and works, often in their majors. They all seem to love it. Doesn’t get better than that.