What 'Hard Work U' Can
Teach Elite Schools
By Stephen Moore in
the Wall Street Journal
Point Lookout, Mo.
Looking for the
biggest bargain in higher education? I think I found it in this rural Missouri
town, 40 miles south of Springfield, nestled in the foothills of the Ozark
Mountains. The school is College of the Ozarks, and it operates on an education
model that could overturn the perverse method of financing college education
that is turning this generation of young adults into a permanent debtor class.
At this college the
tuition is nowhere near the $150,000 to $200,000 for a four-year degree that
the elite top-tier universities are charging. At College of the Ozarks, tuition
is free. That's right. The school's nearly 1,400 students don't pay a dime in
tuition during their time there.
So what's the catch?
All the college's students—without exception—pay for their education by working
15 hours a week on campus. The jobs are plentiful because this school—just a
few miles from Branson, a popular tourist destination—operates its own mill, a
power plant, fire station, four-star restaurant and lodge, museum and dairy
farm.
Some students from
low-income homes also spend 12 weeks of summer on campus working to cover their
room and board. Part of the students' grade point average is determined by how
they do on the job and those who shirk their work duties are tossed out. The
jobs range from campus security to cooking and cleaning hotel rooms, tending
the hundreds of cattle, building new dorms and buildings, to operating the
power plant.
The college was
founded in 1906 as the "School of the Ozarks" atop local Mount
Huggins, named for brothers Louis and William Huggins from St. Joseph, Mo., who
gave the school its first endowment. From the start, the school was run on the
same work-for-education principle as it is today.
Just over 40 years
ago, this newspaper made College of the Ozarks famous with a 1973 front-page
story that nicknamed the school "Hard Work U." In 1988, when he
became the school's president, Jerry C. Davis, started plastering the moniker
"Hard Work U" on nearly every structure and piece of promotional
material printed at the college. "We saw this as a huge marketing coup
because it sets us apart from nearly every other school in the country,"
explains the colorful Mr. Davis, who in 26 years as head of the school has
brought to campus such luminaries as President George W. Bush,
Margaret
Thatcher, Tom Brokaw and Norman Schwarzkopf.
"We don't do debt
here," Mr. Davis says. "The kids graduate debt free and the school is
debt free too." Operating expenses are paid out of a $400 million
endowment. Seeing the success of College of the Ozarks, one wonders why
presidents of schools with far bigger endowments don't use them to make their
colleges more affordable. This is one of the great derelictions of duty of
college trustees as they allow universities to become massive storehouses of
wealth as tuitions rise year after year.
In an era when
patriotism on progressive college campuses is uncool or even denigrated as
endorsing American imperialism, College of the Ozarks actually offers what it
calls a "patriotic education." "There's value in teaching kids
about the sacrifices previous generations have made," Mr. Davis says.
"Kids should know there are things worth fighting for."
He says a dozen or so
students will be taking a pilgrimage to Normandy in June to commemorate the
70-year anniversary of D-Day and the former College of the Ozarks students
buried there. Amazingly, four of the school's graduates served as generals in
the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
The emphasis on work
in exchange for learning doesn't mean the classroom experience is second rate.
The college has a renowned nursing program, business school and agriculture
program. As one who has lectured at many universities, I can attest that the
many students I met on the campus are refreshingly respectful, inquisitive and
grateful for the opportunity to learn.
These aren't the
highest academic status kids (the average ACT score is 21), but there is an unmistakable
quest to succeed. To gain admittance, each student must demonstrate
"financial need, academic ability, sound character, and a willingness to
work." Elizabeth Hughes, the public-relations director, says: "We
don't have a lot of rich kids . . . they have plenty of other schools they can
choose from."
That doesn't mean the
school is not in high demand. Unlike many small liberal-arts schools that are
suffering a steep decline in applications, last year College of the Ozarks had
4,000 applicants for about 400 freshman slots, which makes this remote little
school among the nation's most selective.
All of this raises the
question: To bring down tuition costs elsewhere, is it so unthinkable that
college students be required to engage in an occasional honest day's work? Many
of the privileged class of kids who attend Dartmouth or Stanford or Wesleyan
would no doubt call it a violation of their human rights. Others are too busy
holding rallies for unisex bathrooms, reparations for slavery and an end to fossil
fuels to work while in school. As the humorist P.J. O'Rourke once wrote:
"Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to do the
dishes."
At Hard Work U, the
kids actually do the dishes and much more while working their way through a
four-year degree. Nearly 90% of graduates land jobs—an impressive figure, given
the economy's slow-motion recovery.
"If I were an
employer, I'd take our graduates over those at most any other schools,"
says Mr. Davis. "The kids at these East Coast colleges strike me as being
a little spoiled. Our graduates don't expect to come into the company as the
CEO." But they certainly join a company knowing the value of work.
Mr. Moore is chief
economist at the Heritage Foundation.
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