Letter: Hampshire College Has Abidcated Its Responsibility to Its Students, Families, and Community

The impending closure of Hampshire College (HC) has left students and families devastated in a way that is not well known to the public.  

Our daughter is going into her fourth year at HC.  She has been told that there is no guarantee that she will be accepted at any of the consortium colleges. In addition, she has been told that she may need to attend college for an additional 1/2 to 1 year with, of course, the associated extra expenses. Our daughter had been receiving a substantial scholarship while at Hampshire College which, apparently, will end when Hampshire closes.  

This has created unimaginable problems for our daughter, our family and the other students/families who are currently attending HC.  First, our daughter, like many others, now will not graduate in four years, though she was scheduled to do so while at HC.  Second, her scholarship will cease to exist. That and the additional tuition required for her to graduate will exceed $100,000 over and above what’s already been paid in tuition. Again, this is similar for many of the students at HC. 

Hampshire has failed its students, their families and the community. What has occurred that HC could not survive?  If closure is really necessary, why wasn’t there an orderly transition for students, instead of last-minute chaos that is devastating students and their families, all during finals, and only months before the fall semester begins? Why was there no backup plan? Why weren’t students/families notified of the possibility of closure sooner? Why aren’t HC students given preference to transfer to the consortium colleges? And, why aren’t the colleges allocating money to help these abandoned students finish their degrees?

Instead of being assistive, collaborative and informative, HC has totally abdicated its responsibly to its students, families and community. While we are “updated” routinely by the college’s president, most of those updates consist of nothing more than statements of how hard HC is working on students’ behalf.  Based on what has transpired, these self-aggrandizing statements do nothing to help the students and, I think, add to the frustration of where HC’s incompetencies have put the students. Students are basically being abandoned by HC. Whether a student can transfer is based on the student’s merit and finances, not on any smoothing of the process by HC.  To date, our daughter still has not heard back from two colleges on her ability to transfer and still has no idea how much credit any of these colleges will give her towards graduation. Will she have to go to college for five years or more?  How much will all of this cost over and above the four year track that she was on? No one can say. 

The botching of the closure of Hampshire College mirrors the botching of the administration of the college that led to the closure.  I guess we shouldn’t be surprised.

Tom Dimitre

Tom Dimitre is a resident of Ashland, Oregon