The Little College Where Tuition Is Free and Every Student Is Given a Job

There’s a small burst of air that explodes from every clap. And when hundreds of people are clapping in unison, it begins to feel like a breeze—one that was pulsing through the Phelps Stokes Chapel at Berea College in Kentucky. The students and staff that had gathered here were stomping, clapping, and singing along, as they were led in a rendition of the Civil Rights era anthem, “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around.”

They had packed into the wood-framed building for a convocation address, where the speaker, Diane Clayton-White, would be talking about “Jesus, the Ultimate Rebel with a Cause.” Berea does not have a sectarian affiliation, but the remnants of its Christian foundation are readily apparent—so much so that, as Alicestyne Turley, a history professor at the college, told me, “we have students who come here who think they’re coming to a Christian college,” à la Liberty University or Notre Dame.

White’s address was dotted with the markings of a Sunday sermon—not the stuffy kind, but the kind I’d heard time and again growing up—the jokes, the whooping, the lessons that come in threes. In her speech, White explained to the students that it didn't take supernatural abilities to do great things—only a purpose—and that all the evidence they needed could be found on the campus where they stood.

Listen to current Berea students sing “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around:”

Berea College isn’t like most other colleges. It was founded 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 . Every student on campus works, and its labor program is like work-study on steroids. The work includes everyday tasks such as janitorial services, but older, and the ones who do have an average of less than $7,000 in debt, according to Luke Hodson, the college’s director of admissions.