Despite its sticker price (about $70,000 per year for tuition alone), Washington and Lee vows to meet 100% of the demonstrated financial need for everyone via grants and work-study gigs. This helps enable two-thirds of undergraduates to earn a degree without taking on debt.
One of the nation's oldest colleges, Washington and Lee is partly named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The university has apologized for its past ownership of slaves and removed Confederate flags from a campus, but its board of trustees decided to keep the school’s name as is despite a 2020 faculty vote in which 80% supported changing it.
W&L students can expect a lot of one-on-one time with professors thanks to a student-faculty ratio of 8:1. Graduation rates hover at 94%, and alums typically do well in the working world, bringing in median earnings of just over $100,000 during their early careers. Popular majors include economics, business administration, accounting and political science.
One of the social highlights of each year is the annual Fancy Dress gala, a themed black-tie event that dates back more than a century. Past themes include “Carnival at Venice” (1927), “Odyssey Through the Empires” (1955) and “Party on the Moon” (2016).
