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PBS News Hour

Hampshire closure highlights strain on liberal arts colleges

Season 2026 Episode 80 | 5m 26s

After years of financial decline, Hampshire College, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts, has announced it will close at the end of the year. But the college is hardly alone. A new estimate projects that nearly 450 of the nation’s 1,700 private, nonprofit colleges and universities are at risk of closing or having to merge within the next decade. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Jon Marcus.

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