Shifting ground: Dozens of college closures across New England jolt region famed for higher ed

Koenig, who's run The Country Bookshop in Plainfield since 1974, said it was no secret the college - Plainfield's largest employer for years - was struggling financially. Town clerk Bram Towbin said a critical shift came in the early 2000s, when Goddard switched to a "low-residency" program, which meant students would live on campus for only a few weeks each year.

"From an economic point of view, having those students around all the time was vital (to Plainfield)," Towbin said. "It really just changed the whole tenor of the town."

In January 2024, the school announced it planned to go completely online. Then, it announced in April that it was closing, citing "looming" financial insolvency and low enrollment, which had dropped from 1,900 students in the 1970s to 220.

The Goddard campus has since been purchased by developer Mike Davidson's company, Ledgeworks . He's planning new housing, which this flood-stricken area in Vermont desperately needs. He also envisions the property hosting arts and cultural offerings, to continue the spirit Goddard established.

Koenig said it's part of a "new beginning" for Plainfield.

"Yes, Goddard is closed … but it seems like there's a lot of new energy," he said. "It's like a rejuvenation of the place."

Davidson said Vermont's recent string of college shutdowns has huge implications, which he's hoping his project can help counter. Vermont has just nine four-year colleges and universities left.

"Once you eliminate six or seven educational institutions - the magnets for youth - the flow of future Vermonters will slow to a trickle," he said. "We are combating that."

Goddard and Eastern Nazarene College shared two characteristics common to struggling schools: They were smaller and private.

Private colleges don't have the possible backstop of state money when finances get shaky. And smaller schools can be more dependent on student tuition to fund operations, said Dubravka Ritter, a special advisor on higher education finance at the Philadelphia Fed.

"Larger institutions are generally more resilient, because they tend to have a more diversified mix of revenue," said Ritter, who has studied how to best predict college closures. "They don't rely on tuition revenue quite as much."

Even some smaller, private schools that seem flush with funding are facing major stresses in the current higher ed environment, as shown in public disclosures.

Earlier this year, Middlebury College in Vermont projected a $14.1 million deficit for its fiscal year, noting that enrollments were "lower than we planned for." The school said the enrollment shortfall accounted for $8.7 million of the deficit.

In June, Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, announced it would cut the faculty size by up to 30% over three years and eliminate some majors. It cited, in part, "unprecedented pressures on institutions from national demographic changes impacting enrollment."

Middlebury has an endowment of nearly $1.6 billion. Clark's is $501 million.

Sullivan, the Boston Fed lead policy analyst, said that while a large endowment can help cover some of a school's costs, it doesn't necessarily mean an institution is financially healthy. He added that a lot of endowment funds come with tight restrictions on how they can be spent.

"Schools with a large endowment are more likely to have higher investment returns," he said. "But if a college is continually operating at a loss, they can't just keep dipping into their endowment funds."