Hampshire College to close after years-long turnaround effort comes up short

Hampshire College’s long-running turnaround efforts came to an end this week. 

Following “years of sustained effort to secure the college’s financial future,” the Massachusetts institution announced Tuesday that it will shut down permanently in December, when its fall 2026 semester ends. 

The private liberal arts college will not bring in any new students this fall and will refund deposits for those who were already admitted. But it will teach courses and provide services for current students through the fall term. 

Hampshire is working with its accreditor and the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education on a teach-out plan for students who can’t complete their degrees before the closure. Partner institutions include Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

“Hampshire’s board made this decision only after exploring every possible alternative,” said board Chair Jose Fuentes in a statement Tuesday. “The financial realities we face: declining enrollment, the weight of long-standing debt, and stalled progress on land development left us no other responsible path.”

The closure announcement comes a little over a month after Hampshire’s accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education, warned that the institution was at risk of being put on probation or losing accreditation entirely over concerns that it lacked sufficient resources. 

In a community message on Tuesday, Hampshire President Jenn Chrisler confirmed the institution “no longer has the resources to sustain full operations and meet our regulatory responsibilities.” 

With recent efforts to boost enrollment falling short, the college would have needed to make “extraordinary cuts to our operating budgets” to stay afloat, she added. 

In its March notice to the college, NECHE highlighted Hampshire’s $21 billion in bond debt and the college’s failed efforts to date to refinance it. The accrediting body noted at the time that Hampshire faced a looming September tender date, when it would be on the hook for buying its bonds back. The college also breached the terms on a group of bonds last June, according to its fiscal 2025 audit.

Additionally, NECHE pointed to Hampshire’s inability so far to monetize a piece of land as planned through commercial and housing development. 

Chrisler alluded to that as well, noting that “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.”

According to NECHE, fall enrollment in 2025 dropped 11.3% year over year to 747 students, indicating Hampshire was not “successfully sustaining its enrollment growth momentum.”  

Honoring a legacy

Closing now means officials “can leverage the institution’s limited financial resources to facilitate a transition” for students, while respecting the college’s faculty and staff, and honoring its legacy, Chrisler said.  

Hampshire was founded in 1965 as — in Chrisler’s words — a home for “deeply curious, creative people who have radically reimagined the liberal arts.” 

The college has graduated some prominent alumni, including nonfiction writer Jon Krakauer and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns. 

In a statement following Hampshire’s announcement, Burns said “Hampshire College is woven into the very fabric of who I am.” 

“It’s where I learned that there is freedom in searching, and even in failure,” he added. “I learned to use that freedom to question everything, and ultimately to find my voice as a storyteller in a way that would have been inconceivable at a conventional institution.”  

Hampshire had a brush with closure less than a decade ago — but survived by taking what were considered extraordinary steps. 

In fall 2019, the college admitted only a partial incoming class. Then, a curriculum revamp and fundraising push helped it rebound from its enrollment lows and mark it as a higher education turnaround success story. 

However, Hampshire’s enrollment never fully recovered to pre-2019 levels, when headcounts hovered around 1,200 and above, and it wasn’t able to fully balance its budget. In 2024, the college cut 9% of its employees after lower-than-expected enrollment and as it continued working toward a balanced budget.