Loving Amherst Enough to Demand Better

James Baldwin once said, “I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” That’s precisely how I feel about Amherst College. My criticism doesn’t stem from ingratitude or disillusionment — it comes from believing this institution can and should be better than what it has now become.

Returning from winter break, many of us were shocked by the sudden elimination of four Student Affairs positions, including directors who had dedicated years to making this campus a more equitable and inclusive place. The administration’s reorganization was composed of a series of demotions. Long-serving staff members who had built entire programs and supported countless students were presented with an impossible choice: Accept a lower title with reduced pay or leave. Director positions became “associate director” positions with nearly identical responsibilities but diminished compensation and status. One staff member who had served this community for seven years received this news with no warning, no consultation, and no appreciation for their contributions at all.

The treatment of former Assistant Director for Religious & Spiritual Life and Campus Rabbi  Shahar Colt exemplifies the callousness of these decisions. Her position was eliminated entirely when the administration decided to merge the roles of Director of the Center for International Student Engagement and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life into a single position. She was offered part-time work as a Jewish chaplain or nothing at all. No full-time professional could accept such terms. This so-called “choice” was a dismissal dressed up in the language of opportunity. 

What makes this situation particularly frustrating is the administration’s insistence that these changes represent strategic planning rather than what they are: Cost-cutting measures that target the most vulnerable parts of our institutional infrastructure. President Michael Elliott’s Jan. 16 email about “An Update about Staffing,” originally sent only to staff and faculty and later forwarded to students by Student Affairs, cited budget deficits exceeding $40 million annually caused by rising operational costs, healthcare expenses, and staffing increases over the past decade. Yet the current solutions proposed exclusively target student resources, diversity initiatives, and support services, which are the very programs that structure Amherst’s commitment to equity and inclusion.

So where, exactly, is our money going? We pay roughly $90,000 annually to attend Amherst, one of the highest tuition rates in the country. For that price, we receive one centralized dining hall serving what increasingly resembles high school cafeteria food. Our residence halls are deteriorating, with maintenance issues that go unaddressed for weeks. We’ve lost the ability to take food to-go, forcing overcrowding in Val and encouraging overeating and food waste. The college has revoked Adobe Creative Cloud access from students’ accounts. Club budgets have been slashed so dramatically that some student organizations struggle to cover operational costs and must constantly question whether they’ll secure adequate funding in the future. 

After speaking with upperclassmen, it seems to me that the quality of life at Amherst has steadily declined over the past few years. It happens gradually through a restriction here, a budget cut there, until suddenly you realize how much has been stripped away. We used to have Winterfest. We used to have robust programming across campus. We used to have adequately funded student organizations. Each loss felt small in isolation, easy to forget or dismiss. But cumulatively, they reveal an institution slowly abandoning its commitments while continuing to charge premium prices and tout its progressive values.

What troubles me most isn’t just what’s being cut, but what’s being protected. I’m confident the leadership at this institution isn’t taking a pay cut. The cuts flow downward and outward, targeting those with the least power to resist: support staff, student workers, and the resource centers that serve our most marginalized community members.

The college boasts a multi-billion-dollar endowment. Even conservative investment returns on that principal would generate tens of millions of dollars annually. Yet we’re told we cannot afford to adequately staff our resource centers or maintain basic quality of life for students. I don’t claim to be an expert on college budgeting, and the 2025 Annual Endowment Review is something I am still working to fully understand. But from where I sit, the math doesn’t seem to add up. And more troublingly, the priorities don’t appear to center on students.

I also want to address the economic model that makes all of this possible. Amherst’s student body is increasingly bifurcated between high-income students who pay full tuition and low-income students who receive full financial aid. The middle class is squeezed out, unable to afford the price tag but ineligible for sufficient aid. The college can point to generous financial aid policies when soliciting donations, appealing to alumni and donors who want to support access and opportunity. But how much of that donated money actually goes toward educating students, and how much disappears into administrative overhead or other priorities?

The college reports that a year of education actually costs approximately $135,000 per student — significantly more than the evergrowing $90,000 comprehensive fee charged to full-pay families — with income from the endowment and from gifts and grants supplying this $45,000 difference. 

For comparison, the average Massachusetts private college charges roughly $53,000 in tuition, and national data shows the average cost to educate a college student, including all expenses, is approximately $38,000 annually. Even accounting for Amherst's smaller classes and superior resources, the gap between peer institutions and our reported cost is puzzling.

This isn't meant to diminish Amherst's commitment to financial aid, and the actual cost of educating an Amherst student is certainly substantial. But understanding whether funds support direct educational costs or subsidize administrative overhead is essential to evaluating whether the institution's spending priorities align with its educational mission. 

Amherst’s budget narrative fits a disturbing national pattern. Matthew Hendricks, an economics professor at the University of Tulsa who studies higher education finance, found that universities with substantial endowments frequently prioritize cuts to instructional spending over administrative costs. In his work, he analyzed institutions like Tulsa, which has a billion-dollar endowment and only 4,000 students, yet claimed it needed to cut 40 percent of academic programs.

The parallel to Amherst is striking. We have a multi-billion-dollar endowment and approximately 1,800 students — a far more favorable ratio than Tulsa’s. Yet we’re being told that staffing cuts to student support services are unavoidable due to $40 million annual deficits. Hendricks’ research shows this is exactly how administrators promote the idea of data-driven decision-making but fail to make data-driven decisions themselves. They rely instead on rhetoric, narrative abstractions, and business intuition that don’t align with educational missions. Closer examination of Tulsa’s financial data revealed the crises were manufactured or exaggerated, and that the institution had resources available if it was willing to reallocate from administrative functions. We should demand the same level of financial transparency and accountability at Amherst that goes beyond the Annual Expenses listed.

We must remember that Amherst is the institution it is now because of the battles won by previous generations of students. Our strong financial aid, our resource centers, and our spaces for marginalized students — all of these exist because our predecessors refused to accept institutional failures as inevitable. We have the resources, the talent, and the stated commitment to be a leader in accessible, equitable higher education. The gap between what we could be and what we are is therefore not a resource problem as much as it is a priority problem. This legacy of engagement is what’s at stake now.

Grace Escoe ’26 told me that during her time at Amherst, there has been a troubling shift. “As a first-year, I saw upperclassmen genuinely invested in making the college better, serving in leadership positions because they cared about the work, not just to build their résumés.” “Increasingly,” Escoe continued, she sees “students joining clubs and organizations for appearances rather than commitment, listing lab affiliations they barely participate in, taking on leadership roles they don’t fulfill.” This isn’t entirely the students’ fault as much as it’s a cultural shift toward performative achievement over substantive engagement. But it matters because institutional change requires people willing to do the unglamorous work of organizing, advocating, and sustaining pressure over time.

We’ve become dangerously complacent. The Pro-Palestine protests saw students push hard for divestment, only to slowly fizzle out when the trustees said no. Compare that to previous movements at Amherst that didn’t stop at the first “no,” such as the Amherst Uprising, and ultimately won significant victories. Our complacency sends a message to the administration: Push back once, and students will give up. We can protest, we can write op-eds, but if we don't sustain our demands, nothing will change.

The students do hold power here, but only if we’re willing to use it collectively and persistently. This means everyone recognizing that an attack on any part of our community is an attack on all of us. The administration can ignore individual complaints, but it cannot ignore sustained, unified pressure from the entire student body. Likewise, we need to build coalitions beyond campus. Alumni who care about Amherst's mission should know what’s happening to the institution they love. Prospective students and their families deserve to understand what they would actually be paying for. And the wider higher education community should see Amherst as a cautionary tale about what happens when financial pressures lead institutions to abandon their stated principles.

Most importantly, we need to remember that Amherst College is determined not by what it claims to value in mission statements, but by what it actually prioritizes when resources are scarce and decisions are difficult.

I want to be clear: I am deeply grateful for my education and the opportunities Amherst has provided. But to echo Baldwin again, I criticize Amherst precisely because I believe in what the institution I love could be. I am fueled by my frustration at seeing Amherst fail to live up to its potential. I’ve seen glimpses of that better institution in transformative classes, in supportive community spaces, and in scenarios when the college lives up to its aspirations. But I’ve also seen how quickly we foreclose those possibilities when we accept restrictions as inevitable or defer without question to administrative authority.

The question is whether we — current students, but also faculty, staff, alumni, and trustees — are willing to do the hard work of closing the gap between Amherst’s potential and our current reality. Are we willing to organize beyond the initial backlash and hold the administration accountable not just for what they say but for what they do?

I hope the answer is yes. Because if we don’t fight for a better Amherst, no one else will. And the institution we leave behind will be diminished — less supportive, less equitable, less true to its stated values. We owe more to ourselves, to future students, and to the generations who fought to make Amherst what it is today.