[G]reen Mountain College officials announced Wednesday that the school would close at the end of the academic year due to declining enrollments.
The Poultney school also announced that Prescott College in Arizona has agreed to enroll students who want to finish out their degrees in the same area of study. The two schools are founding members of the EcoLeague consortium of environmentally-focused colleges.
Seven other schools, including three in Vermont, have agreed to “teach-out” agreements, which allow students to automatically enroll and finish their degrees, according to a public relations consultant representing the college.
Just next door in Rutland county, Castleton University has already organized information sessions this weekend for students who want to transfer. Marlboro College and Sterling College will participate in the “teach-out” plan.
Prescott will house all of GMC’s student records, hire some of its faculty, and create a center, school or institute to carry the Green Mountain name.
The partnership with Prescott and the teach-out agreements must still be approved by accreditors.
GMC leadership held an all-college meeting for students, staff and faculty on Wednesday to announce the decision to close and will be holding additional question-and-answer sessions.
“Our efforts to maintain the Poultney campus as the site where Green Mountain’s unique programs would continue to be delivered did not cease when students left for the semester break a month ago,” GMC president Robert Allen said in a statement.
“In fact, efforts were redoubled to find a solution but we have reached the point that continued pursuit of these strategies is narrowing the options available for all students, faculty and staff,” he added.
For about 18 months, GMC administrators and college trustees had been discussing a wide range of options for dealing with the school’s strained finances as enrollment declined. But they were ultimately unable, they said, to find a way forward to keep the Poultney campus open.
Enrollment has declined from 775 to 428 students over a six-year period, the spokesperson for the school said.
Green Mountain College traces its roots back to 1836, when it was the Troy Conference Academy. The current iteration, as a coeducation four-year college offering bachelor degree programs, began in 1975. The college regularly ranks among the Princeton Review’s top “green schools;” it finished 19th in the ranking last year.
The school is not the only small Vermont college in a dire financial situation. College-going rates are declining across the country, but the trend is particularly acute in northern New England, where the demographics increasingly skew older. Nationwide, private colleges are closing at a rate of 11 a year, according to Moody’s.
The New England Commission of Higher Education, the regional accreditor for the six-state region, last year put two schools – Goddard College in Plainfield and the College of St. Joseph in Rutland – on probation over concerns about the schools’ finances.
Probation typically lasts two years, to give schools the opportunity the come back into compliance, but NECHE announced in December its would withdraw the College of St. Joseph’s accreditation in August. School officials there have pledged to appeal NECHE’s decision and fight to stay open.
The commission was also planning a special visit to GMC next fall, but the spokesperson for the school said scrutiny from accreditors did not play into their decision to shutter.
It’s unknown how many GMC employees Prescott will absorb. Green Mountain officials said staff would be notified of the plan for their position next week, and that the college will be holding job fairs on campus in conjunction with the Vermont Department of Labor.
