When your college closes

当你的大学关闭时

Today, Explained

2026-04-24

26 分钟
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Hampshire College's closure is the latest sign of a death spiral in American higher education. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto, edited by Avishay Artsy, fact checked by Gabriel Dunatov, engineered by David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. The campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. AP Photos/Leah Willingham. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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  • Last week, Hampshire College, a private liberal arts school in Amherst,

  • Massachusetts that I had never previously heard of, announced it was shutting down.

  • And I thought, bummer for Hampshire College.

  • But then I read, this is much bigger than Hampshire.

  • The United States currently has 4,000 colleges, and more and more of them are closing every year.

  • In an article at The Atlantic titled The Looming College Enrollment Death Spiral,

  • the writer Jeffrey Selingo says that your Harvards and Yales and Universities of Michigan and Alabama

  • are going to be just fine, but that smaller regional schools that you maybe have n't heard of wo n't be.

  • That means that students who can afford to go to out-of-state schools for their education will continue to do so.

  • But more importantly, those who can afford it might not go to college at all.

  • We are at risk, Solingo explains, of turning a four-year education back into a luxury good in this country.

  • When your college closes, coming up on Today Explained.

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