What’s New, Hampshire College?

State of the Reboot

Since May I’ve been working on the reboot full-time. The short update: the reboot is more possible than I thought and cheaper than I originally said. The legal hurdle I was most worried about, reversing a teach-out without losing accreditation, looks surmountable: a law firm with experience in this area told me regulators would “bend over backwards to make something work”. They really don’t want closures. By treating the endowment as a second stage, the immediate price has come down from $175 million to something like $75–100 million. Faculty have volunteered to teach, students have asked how to transfer, and now I know the people to call. The only thing missing is a donor, and the deadline is roughly December 2026.

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On May 1st, 2026, I published Real Hampshire College Has Never Been Tried, and on the 10th I posted How to Market Hampshire College.

Let’s do the pitch in brief. Hampshire College is the most demanding model in American higher education, and here’s why: At Hampshire you’re treated as a scholar and given advanced classes right away, where you are expected to at minimum critique the work of others, but ideally produce your own. In a sentence, it’s “get in the arena right away.” This is the spirit that unites all other parts of the model.

Hampshire is built on the idea that academic cruft gets in the way, that students should be allowed to move as fast as they want. The model backs this up: no cramming for tests, no gen ed requirements, a mandatory project as a year-long senior thesis. The reason there are no grades, no departments, and no requirements is that these are all mechanisms for keeping you out of the arena. Hampshire simply removes them.

Hampshire’s unofficial slogan is “grad school for undergrads”. Students read primary sources, take graduate-level seminars, and do original work. It comes with a strong track record: 8.4% of graduates earn research doctorates (top 40 colleges nationally), and 1 in 4 start their own company or nonprofit. Hampshire accomplished all this on a shoestring budget, so this is the floor, not the ceiling.

Unfortunately, Hampshire is closing. But the school still has an 800-acre campus in Amherst, MA, the brand, the model, and accreditation. With the right donation, Hampshire could be brought back to life. That’s the goal: to reboot Hampshire College and revitalize higher education by example. And eat Harvard’s lunch.

I’ve spent the summer developing this project further, having calls, holding meetings, giving talks, sending emails, spreading the good word. Now that it’s August, I figured it was time to post some updates.

The Roundup

Organizing something this large has been pretty interesting. I’ve spoken to consultants, people working at startup universities, philanthropists, a retired state senator, ed-tech executives, lawyers, and bloggers. Some of these meetings were on the phone, some were in person, and one was a zoom call at midnight with a researcher in Singapore. I flew to California and spent about a week and a half meeting people, leading discussions, and giving talks on the future of higher education. And I went to Hampshire Commencement on May 16th to see some of my former students graduate.

Poster by Pete Peters 22F

Naturally I’ve spoken with other Hampshire alumni, as well as members of the administration and former members of the board of trustees. I’ve spoken with the board of Hampshire Next, and though our visions for the future of the college are somewhat different, we’ve discussed and shared notes.

Several people have approached me to express interest in teaching at a rebooted Hampshire College, including some former faculty. I’ve heard from a number of alumni who have since become college or university professors at other schools, who pledged to take a sabbatical and come teach for a semester if Hampshire gets rebooted. I’ve heard similar promises from professors at other schools, including a friend of mine at UMass.

I’ve also been surprised to meet several young people who are either dissatisfied with their situation at Brandeis or Stanford, or who chose not to go to college at all, and who say that they wish they could transfer to Hampshire. Demand for this model is definitely there.

I remain pretty committed to Hampshire’s educational model and I’m hesitant to change much, but I’ve heard a few ideas that seem exciting. One is adding vocational and technical training to the curriculum — welding, plumbing, electrical, etc. Serious money is moving into the trades, with Bloomberg Philanthropies committing $90 million in June and Lowe’s $250 million in April. And there’s a lot of demand for these programs, with many more applicants than spots. Smith Vocational regularly gets over 300 applications for a 150-seat freshman class, excess demand fifteen minutes from Hampshire campus. This isn’t really a departure from the model. Hampshire has always been very hands-on, students already love the machine shop. And graduating students who can make their way in either a PhD program or in the trades — well, it strikes me as very American, in the best possible way.

Going into this project, one of my main concerns was the legal hurdles to reversing the teach-out and preserving the accreditation, but I’ve spoken to a law firm with experience in this area and was pleased to discover that they are extremely optimistic. They acknowledged that reversing a teach-out would be hard work, but they also said that the regulators would “bend over backwards to make something work”, their words exactly. In their experience, regulators do not want closures. If it’s at all possible to keep a school open, they will find a way to make it work.

The Funds

In the original post, I quoted a price tag of $175 million to reboot the college. This was based on an estimate of $68 million for the reboot, plus a $100 million endowment to support the operating budget and provide a buffer. But after some discussion it’s become clear that a better strategy is to first rebuild the college to full enrollment, then raise the endowment as stage two, maybe through conditional donations.

This means the immediate price tag is more like $75-$100 million. That’s enough operating capital to cover the runway you would need to build back to full enrollment, at which point the college would be self-sustaining. This dovetails with unofficial comments we’ve heard from the administration that something in that range would be needed to convince the board of trustees to reverse the teach-out decision.

Of course, that’s not the ceiling. A few people have told me that if you can raise $100 million, you can raise $300 million, and have encouraged me to shoot for more. Someone pointed out that Olin College started with an endowment of about $460 million, and for the first few years, gave every student a full ride. Offering a full ride for the early reboot cohorts sure would be a way to rebuild enrollment! If that kind of money becomes available, it’s a pretty good idea.

The Deadline

I originally said that the deadline for reviving the school was September 2026. The exact deadline has become less clear, but that is probably good news, as it likely extends beyond September. Here’s the deadline as I currently understand it.

Hampshire is currently doing a teach-out for the Fall 2026 semester, so the school will stay open and accreditation will be preserved until the end of December. It can still be recovered for a reboot, but for how long remains an open question. Past a certain point, recovery becomes a negotiation with the accreditors rather than a given, but counsel doesn’t rule it out.

I previously thought there was a hard deadline around Hampshire’s September 2026 tender date, at which point the school would be obligated to buy its bonds back. That might still be true, but the state of the debt is currently unclear.

In June, Hampshire secured a loan from a philanthropic partner to fund the teach-out, allowing students to complete their final fall semester. The loan might be relatively small, only enough to complete the fall semester. But the loan might be relatively large, perhaps large enough to discharge the debt and take the time pressure off. It may even be large enough to support a longer wind-down that goes well beyond December. This is hinted at in the reporting, which says that “the loan will enable Hampshire to create future uses for its campus that align with the institution’s values”.

Unfortunately, the identity of the lender and the terms and amount of the loan are not public knowledge. In either case, the college still has a new creditor to negotiate with. But the loan does suggest the window for a reboot might be longer than September.

The campus has been openly marketed through a broker since May, with no fixed deadline and no reported serious offer. That means the market has now had two and a half months to look at 800 acres in Amherst, and despite some ideas being floated, nobody has sealed the deal. A reasonable interpretation of the situation is that the obvious commercial buyers have looked and passed.

At least for the moment. The town of Amherst is considering rezoning the campus and held its first public session on July 21, with consultants presenting preliminary estimates that about 200 acres would be suitable for housing development. Draft zoning is targeted for January 2027, and this will build a path towards easier development. That said, these are estimates based on maps and aerials, and there remains a lot of uncertainty around e.g. buffer zones from streams and wetlands.

All that to say, the current deadline for a reboot is probably around December 2026.

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The good news is that having laid this groundwork, the only thing missing is a donor. The college can still be rebooted, and I know the law firm, consultants, professors, etc. to call if a large enough donation can be secured.

So if you want to volunteer, make an introduction, pledge to teach, register interest as a student, if you know who the philanthropic lender is — or if you want to donate — please email me at <ethanludwinpeery@gmail.com>.