AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS — Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in Amherst, Massachusetts, will close permanently after the fall 2026 semester due to low enrollment and financial problems. The board of trustees announced the closure in a statement posted on the college's website.

The board said it had worked to increase enrollment, refinance existing debt, and generate new revenue through the sale of a portion of its land. "We have long known that addressing these issues is essential to establishing a stable financial foundation, supporting long-term operations, and meeting regulatory requirements. We are faced with the clear, heartbreaking reality that progress on each of these three key factors has fallen far short of what we had hoped," the board wrote.

The college, founded in 1965, had faced cuts to its operating budgets to educate the student body as enrollment declined. Nearly 300 higher education institutions in the United States closed between 2008 and 2023, according to the Hechinger Report.

Final-year students, referred to as division III students under Hampshire's academic system, will be allowed to complete their degrees and will have access to campus housing and student support during the fall 2026 semester. Commencement ceremonies will be held in May for graduating students, and a streamlined ceremony will take place the following winter for students completing their degrees in December.

First- through third-year students, classified as divisions I and II, will be able to transfer through agreements Hampshire has established with eight institutions: Amherst College, Bennington College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Massachusetts College of the Liberal Arts, Mount Holyoke College, Prescott College, Smith College, and UMass Amherst. The college will also refund deposits for all accepted students.

Film-maker Ken Burns, an alumnus of Hampshire, responded to the announcement. "This is an incalculable loss, the reverberations of which will be felt in ways none of us can imagine, but at the same time I know that Hampshire's ethos and probing way of seeing the world doesn't disappear when a campus goes quiet," Burns said.