Education

Ken Burns speaks out on Hampshire College’s looming closure

The experimental liberal arts school in Amherst is preparing to wind down operations following financial strain.

The campus of Hampshire College in Amherst on Tuesday, April 14, 2026. Leah Willingham / AP

April 15, 2026 | 10:10 AM

2 minutes to read

The announcement on Tuesday that Hampshire College will close, after years of financial strain, reverberated through the campus community and among its well-known alums.

Filmmaker Ken Burns, a 1971 graduate and one of the college’s largest supporters, including a $5 million donation in 2022, said the school is where he found his voice.

“Hampshire College is woven into the very fabric of who I am,” Burns said in a statement, shared with CBS Boston. “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.”

He continued, “The thousands of lives transformed by this miraculous improbable place will carry its revolutionarily generative spirit forward for generations to come.”

The Amherst school is closing after years of facing financial strain, declining enrollment, and an endowment decline.

The school enacted a five-year financial plan launched in 2019 aimed at boosting enrollment, raising money, and leveraging the college’s land and assets.

“Despite this herculean effort, the financial pressures on the College’s operations have become increasingly complex, compounded by shifting external factors,” said a joint statement by the school’s leadership released on Tuesday.

The statement continued, “We want to assure you that Hampshire’s board made its decision only after exploring every possible alternative. Nearly every trustee is an alum, and we share in the community’s heartbreak.”

The school will work with current students to complete their education at the school by the end of the fall semester or to transfer. The school will return deposits to newly accepted students.

Founded in 1965, Hampshire College, known for its unconventional, self-designed curriculum without grades, was home to many famous alums.

Some of those include actors Liev Schreiber and Lupita Nyong’o and author Jon Krakauer.

Eugene Mirman, another alumnus known for his role voicing Gene Belcher in “Bob’s Burgers,” told The Boston Globe he adored his time at the college, adding that he owes the college for giving him “the space, mentorship and practical blueprint to pursue an unorthodox career.”

“I made some of my closest friends there. It will be greatly missed,” Mirman said in a statement to the Globe. “Still, I hope some kind-hearted billionaire buys it and turns it into a confusing Museum To Individuality and Socialism.”