Hampshire College will close after the fall semester this year, bringing to an end its 56-year experiment in higher education and a saga of decline over the past decade that saw the institution first flirt with shutting its doors in 2019.
Jennifer Chrisler, its president, and two members of the Board of Trustees made the announcement on Tuesday in an email to the college community. “The college no longer has the resources to sustain full operations and meet our regulatory responsibilities,” it read in part.
Hampshire said in January that it had missed its projection for fall enrollment, with only 168 freshmen signing up instead of the 300 new students it had hoped for. The New England Commission of Higher Education, a regional accreditor known as NECHE, informed Hampshire leaders last month that the college had to demonstrate it has sufficient resources to operate or potentially find its accreditation on probation.
