A Massachusetts College Is Offering Admission to New College Students
In light of recent events, Hampshire College says it will accept students from New College and charge them the same amount as they do now.
In response to recent events at New College of Florida, Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, has said it will admit all New College of Florida students in good standing and charge them the same amount as they do now.
In a post on its website, Hampshire said, “This opportunity is in response to the ongoing attacks on New College of Florida, which are meant to limit intellectual exploration, stop progress towards inclusion, and stop open discussion of race, injustice, and the history of oppression.”
In January, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed six new trustees to New College’s board of directors. Among them were Christopher Rufo, a well-known conservative activist who started the backlash against critical race theory; Jason “Eddie” Speir, who co-founded the Bradenton faith-based private school Inspiration Academy; and Matthew Spalding, a constitutional government professor at Michigan’s Hillsdale College. In the same month, New College president Patricia Okker was fired at a tense board meeting. She had been in the job for less than two years. Richard Corcoran, who used to be the Speaker of the House in Florida and the state’s education commissioner, took her place. At $699,000, Corcoran’s salary is almost $394,000 more than Okker’s was.
This week, Corcoran fired Yoleidy Rosario-Hernandez, the dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion at New College. Instead, he hired Kevin Hoeft, a “former Republican Party operative who belongs to the National Rifle Association and the conservative Heritage Foundation and once worked for an organisation the Southern Poverty Law Center called a “anti-LGBTQ” hate group,” according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Hoeft will be in charge
In a post about welcoming New College students, Hampshire officials wrote, “We must strengthen higher education as a way to make society more fair, and we must stand up to threats that are meant to silence those who point out the injustices that are built into our current structures, assumptions, and policies.” “The first year of college should be geared towards coming up with new ideas, questions, and answers to the personal, local, and global problems of the 21st century.”
Students at New College who are interested in transferring to Hampshire College can learn more about how to do so here. The schools say that these students will get a grant that will make sure their net tuition for the 2023–24 school year will be the same as their current tuition cost as billed by New College for the 2022–23 school year. Transfer students to a new college will have to show official transcripts and copies of their most recent financial aid awards.