Debt-free after college

The College of the Ozarks, in Point Lookout, Missouri, received very favorable coverage in the New York Times this morning. The article says it's a good school, but

...what is truly different about Hard Work U. — as the college styles itself — is that all 1,345 students must work 15 hours per week to pay off the entire cost of tuition — $15,900 per year. If they work summers, as one-third are doing this summer, they pay off their $4,400 room and board as well. Work study is not an option as it is at most campuses; it is the college’s raison d’être.

This is a college that is philosophically opposed to students starting careers with an Ozark mountain of debt — 95 percent graduate debt free — and it believes that students who put sweat equity into their education value it more. ....

The College of the Ozarks — a four-year college since 1965, and rated No. 30 by U.S. News and World Report among Midwestern colleges offering both liberal arts and professional degrees — is one of seven so-called work colleges. Six describe themselves as Christian institutions and often, like Ozarks, are socially and politically conservative.

At Ozarks, drinking is forbidden, men and women live in separate dormitories and students must attend seven chapel services a year, whatever religion they are. The political outlook is evident in campus speakers like Margaret Thatcher and Tommy Franks, the retired general who led the Iraq invasion.

The college is one of seven belonging to the WorkColleges Consortium.

Fight Song at Ozarks: Work Hard and Avoid Debt - New York Times