A private liberal arts college in western Massachusetts will close after the fall 2026 semester, after years of financial instability and declining enrollment.
Hampshire College in Amherst announced the decision this week after its board of trustees voted to shut down operations. The move ends a decades-long experiment in alternative higher education that struggled to remain viable.
Trustees called the vote difficult as the school failed to reverse its financial trajectory.
“As President Chrisler has shared regularly with our community and our regulatory agencies, we worked aggressively to increase enrollment, refinance existing debt, and realize new revenue via the sale of a portion of our land,” the college said in a statement.
Those efforts failed.
“We are faced with the clear, heartbreaking reality that progress on each of these three key factors has fallen far short of what we had hoped,” the statement added.
Enrollment dropped sharply over the past decade. The school had more than 1,400 students in 2015 but fell to around 700.
Costs increased at the same time. Tuition rose from $59,366 last year to $62,928 this year, and housing costs more than doubled to over $10,000.
Hampshire College is built around an unconventional academic structure. The school does not offer traditional majors or GPAs. Instead, the school uses narrative evaluations in place of grades, while students design their own programs without a set curriculum.
The college also built a reputation for progressive activism. In 2016, it stopped flying the American flag on its main flagpole for a period, sparking backlash from locals.
More recently, the school recruited students from New College of Florida after it eliminated its diversity, equity and inclusion programs and shifted in a more conservative direction.
The college has also supported initiatives to provide financial aid for students who came to the country illegally, including the creation of a scholarship fund backed by private donations for those students.
State officials said they will focus on helping students complete their education.
“We recognize how deeply impactful this closure is for the entire Hampshire community, especially for students who must now determine their path forward,” Massachusetts Higher Education Commissioner Noe Ortega said.
“We urge students to make full use of the supports that Hampshire is offering to guide those decisions and find the best path to completing their academic journey,” he added.
The college said it will use its remaining resources to help students transfer or finish their degrees before closing.
