The Greenway Institute is planning to open a new experimental college in Montpelier, Vermont, by the fall of 2027. Located on a 19th-century campus featuring red-brick buildings and Second Empire-style architecture, the startup aims to address high tuition costs and a declining traditional higher education business model by stripping away nonacademic amenities.
A Campus in Crisis
Higher education faces widespread institutional stress. A total of 152 colleges and universities have closed or merged since 2016, while a new projection places 442 others at risk.
In Vermont alone, seven private colleges have shut down over the past decade.
Mark Somerville, founding president of the Greenway Institute and former provost of Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, stated in the report that this “moment of mass extinction” demonstrates an urgent need for new models in higher education.
Stripping Away the Excess
To combat rising expenses, the Greenway Institute plans to eliminate layers of administrators and nonacademic amenities.
“It’s not fancy. It’s a place where you do have a meaningful relationship with your faculty members. But you also take out your own trash,” Somerville said. The curriculum will focus on proven instructional methods, such as real-world training under faculty supervision. Renovations are already complete on parts of the campus, including the transformation of a building into shop rooms equipped with tools for student projects.
Part of a Broader Alliance
The Greenway Institute is part of the Future Universities Alliance, a group of experimental higher education institutions organized by Duke University.
Another member of the alliance is Project Polymath, founded by Dan Futrell—former CEO of the Pat Tillman Foundation—which plans to mentor bachelor’s degree students starting in 2028 through a model requiring three majors followed by a two-year employer apprenticeship.
Resistance to Change From Within
Brian Rosenberg, former president of Macalester College and author of “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”: Resistance to Change in Higher Education, serves on the advisory boards for both Greenway and Polymath.
Rosenberg noted a “broad agreement that something has to change and also recognition that changing legacy institutions from within is agonizingly difficult.”
Funding and Real Estate Acquisition
The Montpelier campus was purchased by Greenway in 2023 from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, which transitioned mostly to remote operations before being acquired by the California Institute of the Arts following enrollment declines and multimillion-dollar deficits.
The Greenway Institute has raised $4.5 million toward an ultimate fundraising goal of $30 million by 2031, with a tentative opening scheduled for the fall of 2027.
Keep reading