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.