Editorial: Our Duty to Assist Hampshire

On April 14, Hampshire College announced that it will cease all operations after next semester. We cannot understate the damage this loss inflicts on nearby institutions and the future of higher education.

The Editorial Board extends its solidarity with Hampshire College students, faculty, and staff as they begin to navigate uncertain futures with little clarity or assurance. Students are facing the loss of their support systems and financial aid, as well as a need to transfer after most colleges have finalized transfer acceptances. In the meantime, the majority of faculty and staff will be laid off by June with no severance pay. Many will be forced into a brutal job market mid-cycle, long after most hiring decisions for the coming year have been made. For staff without tenure-track status, prospects are bleaker. As an institution tied to Hampshire College since its founding, Amherst College bears a particular responsibility to acknowledge this moment not simply as an external crisis, but as one that implicates our own community, values, and institutional choices.

Hampshire’s closure directly affects Amherst students and administrators. We have prided ourselves on being a part of the Five College Consortium, a community where Hampshire is an irreplaceable member. At a time when liberal arts colleges, including Amherst, are increasingly pressured by grade inflation and market logic, Hampshire pioneered a unique approach to higher education by allowing students to create their own program of study, assessing coursework with personalized evaluations, and providing financial aid to 99% of its students. It has demonstrated, to the Five College community and beyond, what a radical, all-encompassing liberal arts education could look like when it is built upon close student-faculty collaborations without being constrained by majors, departments, or letter grades. Hampshire’s disappearance not only marks a fall in the Five College Consortium’s educational diversity, but it also confronts us with the harsh financial reality of small colleges trying to forge alternative paths in higher education.

Hampshire is not an exception. Small colleges across the country are closing or merging under financial strain, rising tuition costs, and declining public investment in higher education. Not long after Hampshire announced its closure, Anna Maria College in Paxton, Mass., announced it would close after this semester. Several other colleges have likewise announced their closures — among them Sterling College, Providence Christian College, and Lourdes University — with closures planned for the end of this semester. Nearly 450 of the nation’s 1,700 private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities are at risk of closing or having to merge within the next decade.

These closures are not isolated incidents because they ripple beyond the campus. The towns that host small colleges often depend on them as major employers and economic engines, and their disappearance will reshape the region’s economy. For the town of Amherst and its community, Hampshire’s closure raises questions about what becomes of the spaces it stewarded: the land, the farm, the Eric Carle Museum, among others. Beyond assets that may be liquidated, they are public goods whose future is unknown.

This moment demands more than sympathetic statements. What responsibilities does Amherst College have when a sister institution collapses? What forms of support are we willing to offer — not just symbolically, but materially? We are aware of many internal discussions happening within the college, between the Five Colleges, and even among state representatives. In an email to the Amherst College community on April 14, President Michael Elliott explained that “Amherst will be working to assist our colleagues at Hampshire as they begin the difficult process of winding down operations.” But we would like to ask for more clarity: To what extent will Amherst help Hampshire community members transition, especially when peer institutions have either remained vague about their actions moving forward? For the Hampshire students we admit, how would their financial aid transfer, if at all? It would take a much heavier toll on Hampshire students if they are not only losing institutional support, but also being expected to pay a significantly higher tuition out of pocket. If the college cannot guarantee full financial aid transfer, we can still assist Hampshire students in their transfer decisions by providing more public information on the extent of financial aid Amherst could offer.

It is also worth asking how many Hampshire students the college is willing to admit. We understand that the college has finalized its transfer acceptances and, above all other factors, is constrained by on-campus housing availability. At the same time, we are wondering how much flexibility the college could allow. For example, would the college be willing to provide Hampshire students with housing stipends if we do not have enough dorm rooms? Even a rough estimate of how many Hampshire students we’re willing to take could bring some reassurance to the Hampshire community, and more importantly, give other colleges assisting Hampshire an idea of how many students they would need to take as well.

What about faculty and staff? At a rally in town last Thursday, Hampshire faculty and staff called on the consortium colleges to create “one-year bridge positions” for them to remain employed as they search for new positions. Absorbing a portion of the personnel who built Hampshire’s distinctive pedagogy, even temporarily, would allow Amherst students to benefit from their expertise while giving Hampshire faculty the runway they need. Will Amherst consider this option?

Even if we cannot take more Hampshire students, there are still many things Amherst could use its institutional power to advocate for. For example, could the college loosen its limit of two courses per semester for Hampshire students taking classes here? Could the college request more Route 38 Pioneer Valley Transportation Authority buses, so Hampshire students transferred to colleges within the consortium could stay connected with each other? These measures seem more achievable than, say, providing full scholarships for students or hiring full-time professors. The Editorial Board strongly urges Amherst College’s administration to consider these options and provide closure on its decisions.

In this landscape, Amherst’s privilege is hard to ignore. With its wealth, endowment, and institutional stability, the college is insulated in ways Hampshire never was. Acknowledging this requires responsibility and action from the college. If we believe in community, academic freedom, and the value of liberal arts education beyond profit, then those beliefs must be reflected in how we respond now. Amherst administrators, as well as representatives across the consortium, should engage in transparent discussion about what these institutions are willing to do — whether that involves easing pathways for displaced students, offering meaningful support for laid-off faculty and staff, and reexamining the structures that allow one institution to survive comfortably while another disappears. How Amherst responds to Hampshire’s closure will signal not only what kind of neighbor we are, but what kind of future we imagine for higher education itself. 

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the majority of the Editorial Board (assenting: 7; dissenting: 1; abstaining: 1)