We’ve blogged before about Berea College, a school that “accepts only applicants from low-income families” and doesn’t charge a dime of tuition.  Of course, they have a $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.

That’s the kind of school I like, a place where literary theory can’t soar to ridiculous places on waxen wings because those wings are dirty from shoveling manure.  Because it charges no tuition, Berea gets much of its income from – ta-da! – its endowment.  And with endowments between $16 and $35 billion, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford ought to take notice.

With its hilly campus, Georgian president’s mansion and old brick buildings, Berea looks much like any elite New England college. But its operating budget is less than half that of Amherst, which has a $1.7 billion endowment and about 100 more students. Faculty pay is much lower, and the student-faculty ratio higher [...] To satisfy the work requirement, some students have jobs in the academic departments, administrative offices and labs, while others are assigned to the college farm, the workshops that make and sell traditional mountain crafts (its handmade brooms, especially, are well-known treasures) or the college-owned hotel, which anchors the town square.

Sounds a little like the College of the Ozarks, another school with a similar work requirement and a much smaller, more realistic budget.