Preserving the mission even when colleges close
About The Episode
Massachusetts has the highest concentration of private colleges in the country. It also leads the nation in private college closures. Twenty-seven have shut down or announced plans to close since 2014.
Across the country, declining enrollment, rising costs, fierce competition and mounting financial pressures are forcing small colleges to confront a painful, existential question: What exactly is worth saving? Increasingly, academic leaders and foundations say the answer may not be the institution itself, but the mission it serves.
When a college closes, students can be displaced, employees lose their jobs, and communities can lose a major employer and cultural force. So foundations and non-profits are asking themselves: What if preserving a college’s mission matters more than preserving the institution itself?
In this episode of College Uncovered, GBH’s Kirk Carapezza travels to Provincetown, Mass., to catch up with master gardener David Chard, the 14th and final president of Wheelock College, which closed and merged with Boston University in 2018. Chard argues pruning the number of colleges and preserving a school’s mission – to serve students – is more important than preserving the institution itself.
Meanwhile, Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, is trying to reinvent itself by consolidating departments and adding a new emergency services program as small colleges struggle to compete in an increasingly winner-take-all higher ed marketplace.
And finally, Paul Glastris, editor-in-chief of Washington Monthly, explains what’s at stake for the nation’s educational and class divides if more colleges close. He says the conversation about American higher education needs to focus more on rural and regional colleges that educate most Americans.
“These are the places where 90% of Americans get their degrees,” Glastris says. “So it's just bizarre, the disproportionate emphasis on schools that cater predominantly to the affluent in small numbers and ignoring the institutions that literally lift the country up.”
Related links:
- Washington Monthly’s 2026 College Guide and Rankings, which rate schools based on what they do for the country.
- As small Mass. colleges close, a growing focus on saving the students rather than the schools
- One Vermont school’s plan to survive? A bachelor’s in emergency services
- College Uncovered (Season 2, Episode 4): Closing Time
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Credits:
Host and Producer: Kirk Carapezza
Editors: Adeline Sire and Matt Baskin
Executive Producer: Azita Ghahramani
Mixing and Sound Design: David Goodman & Gary Mott
Theme Song and original music: Left-Roman
Artwork: Matt Welch
Project Manager: Isabel Hibbard
Consulting Producer and Head of GBH Podcasts: Devin Maverick Robins
"College Uncovered" is a production of GBH News