Newbury College announces early that it is closing, avoiding mistakes other colleges have made.
Newbury College had been through many changes and adaptations in its 56 years.
The small private college was founded in 1962 in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston as the Newbury School of Business. It moved multiple times, settling in Brookline, outside the city, in 1982. It became Newbury Junior College in 1971, changed its name to Newbury College in 1985, and became a baccalaureate college in 1994.
These days, Newbury branded itself to try to appeal to current students — as a “liberal arts college providing career-oriented experiential education.”
But on Friday Newbury joined a steady drip of small private liberal arts institutions succumbing to financial pressures and falling enrollment. It announced it will close at the end of the spring 2019 semester.