Berea College

Berea College sits in Berea, Kentucky, at the edge of the Appalachian foothills, and operates unlike most private four-year liberal arts colleges. Founded in 1855, it was the first college in the South to educate Black and white students together and to admit men and women alike. It charges no tuition. Every enrolled student works a campus job through the labor program, and admission favors students with limited financial resources, many from Appalachian Kentucky and neighboring states.

Nursing is offered as a bachelor's degree major, pairing the college's liberal arts core with the science and clinical sequence required for registered nurse licensure. Coursework moves through anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, health assessment, and nursing care across medical-surgical, maternal-child, psychiatric-mental health, and community settings, with supervised clinical rotations at hospitals and health agencies in the surrounding region. Graduates are prepared to sit for the NCLEX-RN. Cohorts stay small, and the rural setting means students often train in the communities where regional health needs run deepest. Compared with Kentucky's larger public nursing programs, Berea offers the cost structure and close faculty contact of a small residential college.