Traditional liberal arts colleges employ a variety of initiatives to connect students to work opportunities--internship programs, co-ops, and work study, to name a few. These initiatives often provide students with some additional income or expose them to a potential career, but they do not necessarily go so far as to fully integrate employment into the academic undergraduate experience. This is where work colleges differ: They combine a foundational liberal arts education with real work experience (not to mention the typically low cost to students). Work colleges are part of the federal work study (FWS) program overseen by the US Department of Education. At each college, employment is part of each student's course of study. Students work an average of 8-20 hours a week in a variety of jobs and perform community service as part of an aligned curriculum. They earn tuition credits through their work, graduating with significantly less debt than students at traditional institutions or with no debt at all. From 2008 to 2013, 20 percent fewer work college graduates used student loans than traditional private nonprofit college graduates. While rigorous third-party evaluations are lacking, work college alumni believe their institutions better prepared them for the workforce than other traditional private or public four-year institutions would have. In the most recent survey, 68 percent of work college graduates reported that their undergraduate experiences prepared them better for work than their peers, compared to 55 percent of private and 47 percent of public college graduates. Work college leaders report that their students are in incredibly high demand by employers even before they complete their education. What is common across these schools is the sense of work, service, culture, and community that each exudes--an ethos associated with the post graduation employment successes that often surpass their traditional counterparts. While traditional liberal arts institutions may not wish to adopt the full work college model, several lessons from these schools can help instruct other colleges looking for better ways to align education with work.