Overview
- Hampshire’s board voted to shut the school after the fall 2026 semester, ending a 61-year experiment in self-directed liberal arts.
- The Yiddish Book Center, which sits next to campus and owns its buildings and land, said its programs will continue unaffected.
- College leaders pointed to about 750 current students, mounting land-related debt, and insufficient funding as the reasons for closure.
- The decision forces students to transfer and ends a local hub that drew many Jewish students, including roughly 325 identified by Hillel.
- Founded in 1970, Hampshire nurtured the Yiddish Book Center launched in 1980 and hosted a student-organized Holocaust course the school calls the nation’s first.