What will become of the Five College Area?
March 11, 2019 4:23 AM Subscribe
We're looking to move to the Five College Area in Massachusetts, where we hope to live for decades. Should we worry that declining student enrollments will make it a ghost town? Are there ex-college towns that are relevant bellwethers? How does this concern rank against other anticipated population shifts?
We've read that Hampshire College is floundering, and it started us worrying about what that area, anchored by its five colleges, will be like 5-40 years from now. Our concern is the feel of living there, not resale value or job prospects for ourselves.
Of course in that time, populations in lots of TBD places will likely be shifted by other major trends -- whether that's self-driving cars, or the death of retail, or global warming, or something else entirely. Maybe there's nowhere we wouldn't have a comparable concern. What's been said and what do you think about the prospect of living in a place like the Five College Area in the decades ahead?
We've read that Hampshire College is floundering, and it started us worrying about what that area, anchored by its five colleges, will be like 5-40 years from now. Our concern is the feel of living there, not resale value or job prospects for ourselves.
Of course in that time, populations in lots of TBD places will likely be shifted by other major trends -- whether that's self-driving cars, or the death of retail, or global warming, or something else entirely. Maybe there's nowhere we wouldn't have a comparable concern. What's been said and what do you think about the prospect of living in a place like the Five College Area in the decades ahead?
I might be slightly concerned if UMass Amherst wasn't in the mix--of the 38k students in the area, 30k are from UMass Amherst (which should be called ZooMass and is known as the party school in the UMass system--I feel it's important to keep our Masshole folklore alive).
For those who don't know the area, the five college consortium is part of western Massachusetts and includes Hampshire College, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst, Smith and ZooMass.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 5:44 AM on March 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
For those who don't know the area, the five college consortium is part of western Massachusetts and includes Hampshire College, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst, Smith and ZooMass.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 5:44 AM on March 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
Best answer: To back up JPD's point, here are the founding dates & endowments of the four private colleges in the Pioneer Valley:
This is not to say that there's no reason to be concerned about private New England colleges in the long run (20+ years). I work at another private New England College that is closer in structure to Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, & Smith, but without as much endowment or prestige. Our administration is quite concerned about long-term demographic trends; the college-age population in New England is decreasing, and we have historically drawn from nearby states. Nobody is saying that we're in danger of closing, but there's a focus on trying to broaden our enrollment (getting more students from beyond New England) and trying to differentiate ourselves from all of the other second-tier liberal-arts colleges in New England. These same pressures might hit the Pioneer Valley college some day, but I wouldn't expect them for another 10–20 years or so; and even if they do, they won't cause immediate changes for people not directly employed by those colleges.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:53 AM on March 11, 2019 [8 favorites]
- Amherst: $2.248 billion, founded 1821
- Smith: $1.915 billion, founded 1875
- Mt. Holyoke: $724 million, founded 1893
- Hampshire: $48 million, founded 1970
This is not to say that there's no reason to be concerned about private New England colleges in the long run (20+ years). I work at another private New England College that is closer in structure to Amherst, Mt. Holyoke, & Smith, but without as much endowment or prestige. Our administration is quite concerned about long-term demographic trends; the college-age population in New England is decreasing, and we have historically drawn from nearby states. Nobody is saying that we're in danger of closing, but there's a focus on trying to broaden our enrollment (getting more students from beyond New England) and trying to differentiate ourselves from all of the other second-tier liberal-arts colleges in New England. These same pressures might hit the Pioneer Valley college some day, but I wouldn't expect them for another 10–20 years or so; and even if they do, they won't cause immediate changes for people not directly employed by those colleges.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:53 AM on March 11, 2019 [8 favorites]
(I left UMass Amherst out of the mix in my answer because its financial model is quite different from the private colleges. I don't have a good impression of how the MA public university system is doing relative to other public state systems; hopefully someone else can answer that. However, I would expect any major problems in the UMass system to manifest at their other campuses before they affected the flagship campus in Amherst.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:57 AM on March 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:57 AM on March 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
Hampshire is a bit of a special case, and it was vulnerable in ways that I don't think the other institutions in the area are vulnerable. Having said that, I don't think anyone has a clue what the outlook for higher ed is in the longterm. I think we've all assumed that college towns were safe because they were anchored by institutions that weren't going anywhere, and I don't have as much trust in that idea as I used to. It's all predicated on an unsustainable funding model, and I don't know what's going to happen when the student loan bubble bursts. But I also don't know what's going to happen when climate change really kicks in, and I'm not comfortable saying that any place is definitely going to be a good place to live in the long term. I think you should think about the medium term, because you can't predict the future, and for the medium term, that area seems fine.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:02 AM on March 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:02 AM on March 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
Hampshire is definitely not a leading indicator for the area in general; it's suffering from a collection of unique-to-Hampshire issues that have the college in as close to a no-win scenario as possible. Apparently they opened with a fraction of the intended endowment and 50-year-old infrastructure bills are starting to come due. At the risk of being morbid, college endowments are filled in large part by bequests, and a college founded in 1970 doesn't have very many deceased alumni. And (this is the subject of most of the hottest debate I hear) they are self-imposing the harshest version of the new MA regulatory environment. After Mt Ida abruptly closed and more or less dumped all its students, the new rule is that you have to have four years of operating funds in the bank in order to admit a freshman class. For a school like Hampshire where the vast majority of funds come from tuition, not admitting a freshman class is almost indistinguishable from closing the school outright. I really hope they pull it out but either way the other four of the Five Colleges are in nowhere near the same position.
posted by range at 6:43 AM on March 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by range at 6:43 AM on March 11, 2019 [3 favorites]
There is some concern even at the enormous UMASS about demographics, particularly the baby bust that began during the financial crisis in 2008. To address a possible decline in enrollment, UMASS is considering online learning for adults. Keep in mind that Hampshire College is tiny and way underfunded endowment-wise. This isn't so with the other four institutions.
That said, the five college area has an extremely tight housing market currently with major private student apartment projects in the pipeline to address it. If you're planning to buy something in the next couple years, you could be buying at the height of this tight housing market before all the new projects are built and enrollment stabilizes as well. Every student generates jobs for faculty, support services, restaurants, shops, etc. Declining enrollment means those associated jobs diminish as well, affecting the housing picture. If you can buy low in the next couple years, then you'll probably be fine.
posted by Elsie at 6:51 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
That said, the five college area has an extremely tight housing market currently with major private student apartment projects in the pipeline to address it. If you're planning to buy something in the next couple years, you could be buying at the height of this tight housing market before all the new projects are built and enrollment stabilizes as well. Every student generates jobs for faculty, support services, restaurants, shops, etc. Declining enrollment means those associated jobs diminish as well, affecting the housing picture. If you can buy low in the next couple years, then you'll probably be fine.
posted by Elsie at 6:51 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Should we worry that declining student enrollments will make it a ghost town? Are there ex-college towns that are relevant bellwethers? How does this concern rank against other anticipated population shifts?
I went to Hampshire and this is not something I would worry about. What I would worry about is that there are going to be (and already are to some extent) a lot of out of work Hampshire people looking for jobs and the job market may get... weird around there for a little bit. The feel of living there will generally be like any other college town. UMass is HUGE compared to whatever Hampshire was bringing to the table. You'll get the summertime ebb and flow of people in and out and the general town/gown issues. It's a nice place to live with slightly elevated housing prices like you get in many college towns.
posted by jessamyn at 8:00 AM on March 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
I went to Hampshire and this is not something I would worry about. What I would worry about is that there are going to be (and already are to some extent) a lot of out of work Hampshire people looking for jobs and the job market may get... weird around there for a little bit. The feel of living there will generally be like any other college town. UMass is HUGE compared to whatever Hampshire was bringing to the table. You'll get the summertime ebb and flow of people in and out and the general town/gown issues. It's a nice place to live with slightly elevated housing prices like you get in many college towns.
posted by jessamyn at 8:00 AM on March 11, 2019 [2 favorites]
Many higher ed people are looking ahead to 2026 as a kind of demographic tipping point - the first year that the huge birthrate decline of the Great Recession really takes hold. This author recently spoke at my college regarding this, and the outlook for the Upper Midwest and the Northeast is not good.
There seem to be factors that fall outside demographics in that group of colleges, e.g. the ability to go co-ed, and his studies do not home in on specific regions. Regardless, the basic question is, if the pool of available high schoolers takes a sharp decline, how will these colleges and the towns that lean on them for economic activity adapt?
posted by Caxton1476 at 8:40 AM on March 11, 2019
There seem to be factors that fall outside demographics in that group of colleges, e.g. the ability to go co-ed, and his studies do not home in on specific regions. Regardless, the basic question is, if the pool of available high schoolers takes a sharp decline, how will these colleges and the towns that lean on them for economic activity adapt?
posted by Caxton1476 at 8:40 AM on March 11, 2019
As bellwethers, you might look at Antioch and Oberlin Colleges. They have the good reputations, but times have been harder economically in Ohio than Massachusetts. They will feel hard times sooner and more severely than the MA colleges.
Students tend to go to schools within 300 miles of home. I think as long as the economy of New England in general and Massachusetts in particular is good, the western MA college economy will do well.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:51 AM on March 11, 2019
Students tend to go to schools within 300 miles of home. I think as long as the economy of New England in general and Massachusetts in particular is good, the western MA college economy will do well.
posted by SemiSalt at 8:51 AM on March 11, 2019
It's a great area, and it will only become more popular as people migrate away from the coasts to avoid the impact of climate change related severe weather events. Go for it.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:19 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:19 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
I would be less concerned about the college population (as mentioned, Hampshire is a special case) and more worried about the housing bubble. Rents are incredibly high relative to income in Northampton and Amherst, and close to the colleges houses sell for literally a million dollars (more commonly $700k, $300k for a condo, but that's a lot if you make $40k).
Now, this is all relative to where you're coming from - are you selling a condo in NYC? Do you have a stable telecommute job in the Boston area? Then maybe you will be fine! But I would worry about buying at the peak of a bubble unless you want to buy in a more rural area (say, Franklin County) and drive a lot.
posted by epanalepsis at 10:43 AM on March 11, 2019
Now, this is all relative to where you're coming from - are you selling a condo in NYC? Do you have a stable telecommute job in the Boston area? Then maybe you will be fine! But I would worry about buying at the peak of a bubble unless you want to buy in a more rural area (say, Franklin County) and drive a lot.
posted by epanalepsis at 10:43 AM on March 11, 2019
(which should be called ZooMass and is known as the party school in the UMass system--I feel it's important to keep our Masshole folklore alive)
As a note, this is less and less true. UMass Amherst is quickly raising its rankings (and tuition - now $29,876/yr for in-state and $49,197/yr for out-of-state students) and the culture is changing accordingly. There's still a lot of partying but nothing like it was in the 1970s.
posted by epanalepsis at 10:46 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
As a note, this is less and less true. UMass Amherst is quickly raising its rankings (and tuition - now $29,876/yr for in-state and $49,197/yr for out-of-state students) and the culture is changing accordingly. There's still a lot of partying but nothing like it was in the 1970s.
posted by epanalepsis at 10:46 AM on March 11, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks so much, all! This is very reassuring on the whole -- both the convincing statistics and the more qualitative on-the-ground impressions. We're feeling psyched about the prospect of living in the area -- I'll call a meetup when we get there!
posted by Other at 7:51 AM on March 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Other at 7:51 AM on March 12, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by JPD at 4:39 AM on March 11, 2019 [11 favorites]