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U.S. News and World Report
recently released their rankings of the “10 Colleges Where Graduates Have the Least Debt,” ranking Alice Lloyd College #1. Alice Lloyd topped a list that included such prestigious institutions as the Ivy League’s Princeton and Yale. According to the study, sixty-eight percent of graduates in the class of 2011 borrowed to help pay for college. On average, those students had $26,220 in debt. However, at Alice Lloyd College, 2011 graduates had the lowest average debt of any institution with the 34 percent of students who borrowed owing an average of just $3,750.

Alice Lloyd is one of a select number of schools in the country that offers programs specifically designed to help students cut down on debt. Having been founded as “a college for Appalachia,” ALC is committed to providing guaranteed tuition to students from our 108-county service area. Tuition is guaranteed to those students through several sources, but in particular through endowed scholarships that produce income to fund the supreme financial aid packages available to qualified students. Students must pay room/board, the cost of textbooks, and the matriculation fee, but, as reflected in the U.S. News rankings, the resulting amount owed is far less than what students pay elsewhere.

As one of the nation’s work colleges, Alice Lloyd requires its students to participate in the Student Work Program as a way to meet the costs of guaranteeing their tuition. Students hold various on-campus or off-campus jobs, including (but certainly not limited to) campus maintenance, janitorial duties, student and community services, and administrative assistants. The program requires every full-time student to work a minimum of 160 hours per semester, and the students are paid the prevailing minimum wage rate.


Alice Lloyd
was selected first among the schools surveyed by U.S. News for this report, which included over 1,800 colleges and universities across the nation.

The future looks bright at Alice Lloyd College! We invite you to visit us on any of our Eagle Day Saturday events (please call ahead to schedule your visit):  http://www.alc.edu/admissions/schedule-a-visit/.

Also, help us continue the miracle at ALC! It takes the assistance of individuals all across the country to sustain our commitment of guaranteeing tuition to each one of our qualified students.  Please visit http://www.alc.edu/alumni-giving/ways-to-give/ to find out how you can help.

**Information courtesy of “10 Colleges Where Graduates Have the Least Debt” by Katy Hopkins.