“If we’re going to be successful as an autonomous institution and reverse these financial challenges, it had to be by fundamentally committing to the mission and reinvigorating Hampshire’s distinctiveness,” said Wingenbach.

Hampshire’s trajectory seems like it’s moving in the right direction, said Michael Horn, a higher education expert, podcast host and book author. The college’s enrollment has begun rebounding in the past few years and it is making strides in eliminating an annual deficit.

Other private colleges haven’t successfully turned around dire financial situations in the past few years. That includes Pine Manor College, a Massachusetts institution that announced plans to be taken over by the nearby Boston College in 2020, Mount Ida College, another Massachusetts institution that suddenly shuttered in 2018, and Iowa Wesleyan University, which closed last year.