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by Don Keelan
This column’s title is not meant to parody author Agatha Christie’s (1890-1976) 1939 novel, And Then There Were None. It is intended to describe a problematic trend that has unfolded over the past few years: the closure of ten small Vermont colleges.
A sign of what was to come in subsequent decades took place in Burlington in 2000: Trinity College closed its doors. The small Catholic college was a long-standing landmark in the Queen City, established 75 years earlier. Little attention was paid to the closure. Its closing was the canary in the coal mine.
The latest casualty, 25 years later, is Sterling College, located in Craftsbury, Vermont. According to a report in VTDigger on November 13th: “The college’s decision to end programming was made ‘in the face of persistent financial and enrollment challenges.”’ Sterling, founded in 1958 and with approximately 100 students, was not alone in having to wrap its arms around the issues noted above.
Green Mountain College in Poultney was the oldest of the closed colleges, founded in 1834, and closed in 2019. That same year, in Bennington, the very popular Southern Vermont College, established in 1926, informed its students that their college would be no more. The beautiful campuses of the colleges might soon be turned into tourist accommodation/entertainment venues.
2019 not only witnessed the closure of the above, but in Rutland, another long-standing Catholic institution announced it had to shut its doors. Founded in 1956 and offering a wide range of academic courses to meet its students’ needs, The College of St. Joseph made an unwelcome announcement.
In 2016, in Burlington, the home of two of Vermont’s most prominent institutions of higher education, The University of Vermont and Champlain College, witnessed the closing of a local small college, Burlington College, founded in 1972.
Also, covering both ends of the State, Goddard and Marlboro Colleges closed for good in 2024 and 2020. And, like their sister colleges, they also welcomed young students for over three generations, since 1938 and 1946.
For those who are counting, in 2020 and 2022, the New England Culinary School and Vermont College of Fine Arts closed their Montpelier campus operations.
Could the closings have been avoided if they had been asked the respective college’s student body, parents, faculty, and staff, as well as the local communities where the colleges were located? The colleges, in addition to their academic, sports, cultural, and social contributions, also served as economic drivers in their communities.
It should not be overlooked that the colleges attracted young people to Vermont. Their enrollment was not limited solely to in-state residents, but for many, to out-of-state residents who I can only suspect witnessed Vermont’s beauty for the first time. It is a fair assumption that some of the out-of-state students would have taken up permanent residency in Vermont upon graduation.
The metaphorical canary in the coal mine in connection with the loss of college-age students has application elsewhere. For over a dozen years, we have been informed that a meaningful number of Vermont young adults were afflicted with drug addiction, and approximately 5,000 are in recovery at any one time. The loss, even if temporary, of this sizeable pool of young people has and continues to be an essential factor in a declining workforce.
There was another canary, whose purpose was to monitor the demographics of many of Vermont’s towns and villages; the ever-increasing percentage of their residents was crossing the 60-year-old threshold.
Governor Phil Scott has been, for some time, the clarion: the State is losing its young people. Flood recovery, increasing school taxes, healthcare costs, illegal drug use, and climate change took center stage. Meanwhile, the workforce kept descending.
Other warning signs? A significant drop in public school enrollment, hospitals incurring millions of dollars each year to pay ‘travelers,’ and the hundreds of ‘help wanted’ posters plastered on the windows of Vermont retailers, restaurants, and nonprofit agencies.
What has been missing these past ten years: a connecting of the dots.
The highly ranked, 800-student Bennington College, founded in 1932, has so far weathered many of the crises of its Vermont sister colleges. May it continue and not become #11; otherwise, then there will be none.
The author is a U.S. Marine (retired), CPA, and columnist living in Arlington, VT.
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Categories: Commentary, Education
Blah, blah, blah – the same gripes & grievance, different day.
Once AGAIN….guess who proclaims the exact same nonsense about “losing the young people of this state” and has been since the 1970’s?
1.) Long Island, NY & Upstate NY
2.) Suburban NJ
3.) Suburbia anywhere in CT, etc. etc. etc.
And guess what else? Vermont is not now and is never going to be an NYC (nor do MOST aspire it to be), and young people have the right to expand their horizons, travel & relocate after college or trade school, and retain employment in certain fields that might not largely be available in this beautiful, rural state in which they were born. Such is LIFE! Americans have FIFTY states to explore and pursue their dreams. The American landscape has changed, and opportunities often mandate moving. In turn, retirees often came into OR came back to VT for the safety (uh-oh) & the availability of medical care (double uh-oh) that balance out population stats.
And the “affordable” housing in VT is to be and is currently being AGAIN utilized for illegal immigrants, the unemployed & homeless from around the nation, & the drug runners. VT has NO residency requirements for “free” or reduced housing. Bennington proper alone houses hordes of out-of-staters & their “projects” (affordable housing authority run apartments) and their full-time, decades-old “SHIRES” and “APPLEGATE” developers have turned much of that town from a tourist destination into a near-ghetto in merely two decades. Next stop: MANCHESTER. All Aboard! “Infill” housing & “mixed use” and “workforce” housing (where there’s nowhere to work, somehow) there so that anyone & everyone can set up shop in Manchester no matter what. That’s the Communist way.
And btw, ever think perhaps the “workforce” is descending (as Keelan describes) precisely BECAUSE of the increasing taxes, healthcare costs, and illegal drug use – and not that those were simply ancillary issues that took center stage?
Vermont never required “fixing”, and it stands now as a clear example of why the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was absolutely correct.
Who WOULDN’T seek to leave a state where taxes are now some of the highest in the country, violent crime isn’t prosecuted unless by the feds, drugs are rampant. Meanwhile, across the ‘crick one can pay between merely a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand dollars per year in annual taxes in states such as Kentucky or even Virginia on a 2500 square foot home?
Sometimes the grass really IS greener. Poor Vermont. God help her.
The most popular governor on planet earth couldn’t round up people and change course?
There has never been a plan, there has never been an attempt to public ally change the current course the Vermont is so willfully going.
Modern housing is controlled by the VNRC and VPIRG.
Medical controlled by big pharma and big insurance.
Education by the union.
Elections by Planned Parenthood
State government by lobbyists and United Nations.
Has Scott even mentioned this?
I think not, Montpelier LOVES the current climate, they want zero change and could give a rats behind what you, I or anybody else thinks or votes. They have the money, they have the power and they like things just the way they are.
Don’t be fooled.
Friends don’t let friends be useful idiots.
Scott can’t mention this because ,”you don’t bite the hand that feeds you”.
About Burlington College not mentioned
Burlington College had Jane Sanders (wife of) and president championed a deal to buy a waterfront spread from the local Roman Catholic diocese. Within a year, she was ousted, and the college limped toward obsolescence, buried under debt. Being bankrupt. Ms Sanders got $200,000 severance as a “golden parachute
Poor liberal financial judgment closed this college. Questions about the Burlington College deal live on.
More in the article dated Jan 15, 2024
https://vt.localnews.com/jane-sanders-and-the-messy-demise-of-a-vermont-college-published-2019/
All of these colleges were predominantly liberal arts-focused with progressive, left-leaning emphases on environmental justice, social equity, gender/social studies, and self-directed learning.
They did not emphasize high-demand careers like those in healthcare (e.g., nursing), technology (e.g., cybersecurity), or trades (e.g., welding, HVAC)—fields now prioritized by surviving Vermont institutions like Community College of Vermont (CCV), Champlain College, or Vermont Technical College.
For instance, CCV offers affordable associate degrees in high-demand areas like medical assisting and IT, while Vermont’s CTE centers provide free high school pathways to trades like construction and engineering.
Maybe if these defunct colleges taught something that would put bread on the table some of them would still be in business.
Now the Fish and Wildlife wants everyone to get a license to use this property they think they control. What did they do with all the money from the life time hunting and fishing license fees???????
Another question is, where are all the federal taxes imposed on the sale of firearms and ammo that are suppose to fund these wild life areas????? Inquiring minds would like to know.