- Hampshire College – a small, liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts – has announced that it is closing after the Fall 2026 semester, saying it “no longer has the resources to sustain full operations and meet our regulatory responsibilities.”
- The college’s president, Jenn Chrisler, said in a statement the college’s inability to grow enrollment would mean “extraordinary cuts” to the operating budget needed to educate future students. “Additionally, the degree of short-term debt tied to our land assets means that even a favorable sale would not change our long-term financial trajectory given current enrollment,” Chisler said of the college, which serves about 800 full-time and part-time students.
- The college’s last regular commencement ceremony is set to take place on May 16. A “streamlined” commencement will take place next winter for students who finish their degrees in December.
The bigger picture:
Hampshire College’s closure is just the latest in a steady stream of college closures that have been taking place due to mounting financial pressures since the pandemic. And it won’t be the last. According to The Hechinger Report, among the 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities throughout the nation, 442 are at risk of closing or being forced to merge within the next decade. Many of those closures – like with Hampshire College – have or will take place in New England states.
The college closures have been tied to declining birthrates in the U.S. and widespread skepticism about the value of a college degree. For instance, NPR reports that there were 710,000 fewer babies born in the U.S. in 2025 compared to two decades ago. And Pew Research Center found that only 22% of U.S. adults say the cost of getting a four-year college degree is worth it even if the only way to get one is to take out a loan.
The College Board reports that the national population of high school graduates peaked in 2025 and is expected to decline by 13% by 2041, causing “major challenges for colleges and universities trying to recruit from a dwindling pool.”
