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.
At Hampshire, your education focuses on personalized, independent work, close collaboration with faculty, and hands-on experience through study abroad, short-term field studies, internships, volunteer work, advanced independent projects, and much more.
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 they attempt to ask, and answer, a question perhaps never before posed.
There is no other undergraduate college that approaches learning this way.
Beyond Hampshire's own substantial academic resources, students draw on those of Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which together form the Five College Consortium.
Arguably, no other college in America offers students so much freedom—or so much support.