Beloit College

$49,564 tuition
$280 Activities fee
$196 Health/Wellness fee
$8,830 for room and board
Total: $58,870

Overview
Beloit College is committed to making the Beloit experience affordable for all admitted students. During the 2016-2017 academic year, 98% of enrolling first-year students received Beloit gift aid. The average financial aid award (including federal loans and work study) was $36,857.

Bottom line
Full tuition at Beloit costs $49,564 for the academic year. Housing costs an additional $5,030, and a full meal plan runs $3,800 (this plan is required for all first year students). In addition, there's also a $280 student activity fee, and a $196 health and wellness charge. Families can expect to pay another $1,502 in estimated health insurance costs. Books and supplies often run around $1,000. Finally, it is recommended that students set aside another $1,300 for personal expenses.

Beloit's 40-acre campus is just across the Wisconsin-Illinois state line and is conveniently located just a short drive from three major cities: Chicago (90 miles northwest), Madison (50 miles south), and Milwaukee (70 miles southwest). Beloit's academic buildings are clustered around lawns dotted with trees and twenty ancient North American Indian mounds. Most students live on campus, as Beloit is a residential college that requires students to live in college-operated residence facilities for at least six semesters of full-time enrollment. Beloiters have a variety of housing options to choose from, including traditional residence halls, fraternities (3) and sororities (3), apartments, and special interest houses. All residences halls are within easy walking distance of classrooms, studio locations, and the college's athletic facilities.

Banks, restaurants, and shops can be found within a short walking distance, in downtown Beloit just two blocks from campus. On Saturdays from May through October, students like to attend the region's most popular farmers' market. For ten days each winter, students, local residents, and visitors flock to the Beloit Film Festival (BIFF), where more than 100 films are screened in downtown venues. Year-round, active students venture to one of several nearby parks to exercise, or when it's warm, to listen to outdoor concerts.

Beloit's academic buildings are both historic and cutting edge and are located toward the southern half of campus. Particularly noteworthy are Beloit's two on-campus teaching museums. The Logan Museum of Anthropology houses approximately 15,000 ethnographic—and over 200,000 archaeological objects— from 129 countries and more than 600 cultural groups. The Wright Museum holds approximately 6,000 works of art in its permanent collection. Significant collections include American Impressionism, Modernist paintings, a collection of 19th century plaster casts, German Expressionism, and Japanese Modern prints. Both museums offer students professional opportunities to conduct real museum work in collaboration with faculty and staff.

The Laura Aldrich Neese Performing Arts theatre complex features a large thrust stage theater built to Equity standards, a black box theater with flexible staging, a scenic design studio, costume shop, makeup rooms, dressing rooms, and a greenroom.

The recently named Marjorie and James Sanger Center for the Sciences is a platinum LEED-certified green building that houses the Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Math and Computer Science, Physics, and Psychology departments. Besides its spectacular four-story open foyer, roof garden, and rain garden, the Center features student offices and space for studio format and inquiry-based courses that integrate class, laboratory, and collaborative group work. Special facilities include a visualization lab, a 1,900 square-foot greenhouse with three climate zones, a herbarium, and a rooftop small-telescope astronomy area. Off-campus facilities include Chamberlin Springs, 50 acres of oak and hickory woods and wildlife northwest of the city; the Smith Limnology Lab, a small boat launch and aquatic station on the Rock River; and Newark Road Prairie State Natural Area, a 32.5 acre virgin prairie with more than 300 species of flowering plants.

Several campus buildings are within walking distance downtown: the Hendricks Center for the Arts, a performing arts center; Turtle Creek, the Beloit College bookstore; and The Center for Entrepreneurship in Liberal Education (CELEB), a newly renovated laboratory for entrepreneurship education. Six blocks east of campus, sports fans can head to Strong Stadium Complex and watch the competition from the 3,000-seat stands; the stadium is home to the football, baseball, tennis, softball, and soccer teams. Back on campus, the entire student body can exercise in the Sports Center, which features two racquetball courts, a weight and training room, three full-sized basketball courts, and a six-lane, 25 yard pool.

Currently, the college is in the process of converting a decommissioned powerhouse, located next to campus along the nearby Rock River, into a new student union and recreation center. This one-of-a-kind reimagining of an industrial building will feature student life spaces, conference rooms, fitness and training facilities, an indoor track, a competition pool, and a wellness center. Funded entirely by donations and grant money (no student tuition dollars), the Powerhouse will officially open for campus and community use in fall 2019.

Each year, roughly 140-160 Beloiters choose to study abroad for one or two semesters and travel to more than 40 countries to do so. Students study worldwide through a combination of college programs, offerings by other institutions and partners, and direct enrollment in universities. Domestic off-campus study programs are also robust. Current North American programs open to Beloit College students are: a semester in environmental science at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA; public affairs programs at American University in Washington, D.C.; an arts, entrepreneurship, and urban studies program in Chicago, IL; the Newberry Seminar in Chicago, IL; and the Oak Ridge Science Semester at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory near Knoxville, TN.

The college also offers Cities in Transitions courses, which provide opportunities for students to strengthen their language skills and pursue independent study projects in China, Ecuador, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Senegal. Beloit's Liberal Arts in Practice Center is a great resource for students, providing them with as much as $400,000 in student project funding annually.