Hampshire College is the brainchild of a 4-school effort starting in 1958 to create a school whose philosophy and curriculum offered students the best liberal arts education. The College started offering classes in 1970. Hampshire College joined the four schools (Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College and the University of Massachusetts) to form The Five College Consortium, providing an extraordinarily rich set of academic and cultural resources.
Hampshire students draw upon the resources of the other four colleges. They can take courses at any of these at no extra charge, giving them access to more than 6,000 courses, 8 million library volumes, and the academic facilities of all five campuses. Hampshire students take an average of 5,000 courses annually on the other campuses. A convenient free bus system links the five colleges.
The 800-acre campus serves 1100+ undergraduate students in classes averaging 17 per class.
