Hampshire College

Hampshire College was founded on the belief that the best education is the one a student builds around personal goals. Hampshire opened in 1970, created when presidents of four distinguished New England colleges sought a home for bold, influential—even radical—ideas in higher education. The result: a Hampshire education, shaped around a student's own interests, rather than the usual liberal arts formula. Advancing through three levels, or Divisions, students explore freely and widely across Hampshire's five interdisciplinary Schools.

To graduate, every student, with faculty advice and guidance, devises an individual program in which he or she attempts to ask—and answer—a question perhaps never posed before.

Beyond Hampshire's own substantial academic resources, students draw on those of Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Amherst Colleges and the University of Massachusetts, which together form the Five College consortium. Arguably, no other college in America offers students so much freedom—or so much support.

• Hampshire At A Glance
• Our Academic Philosophy
• Facts, Figures & Faces
• History
• Visiting
• Five College Consortium