Bates College is a highly selective, private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. and was most recently ranked 21st in the 2011 US News Best Liberal Arts Colleges rankings. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists. Bates College is one of the first colleges in the United States to be coeducational from establishment, and is also the oldest continuously operating coeducational institution in New England. Originally a Free Will Baptist institution, Bates is now a nonsectarian institution. As of 2011, Bates is the college with the highest tuition in the United States, but this measurement doesn't consider Bates' grants of financial aid, and "tuition" at Bates includes both room and board in contrast to the tuition at other schools on this government ranking. Bates College offers 32 departmental and interdisciplinary program majors and 25 secondary concentrations, and confers Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees. The college enrolls approximately 1,700 students. The student-faculty ratio is 10-to-1. Bates is a leader of the SAT optional movement for undergraduate admission.