This is such an interesting and thorough look at Hampshire and, as an alum, I particularly appreciate the interrogation of the purpose of a college and it's role in society.

However, two points stick out in this analysis:

First, that some fields (particularly graduate schools) didn't know what to do with Hampshire transcripts and this reduced the available student population for Hampshire. In fact, Hampshire has one of the highest rates of grad school attendance and terminal degrees among all colleges and universities. I don't believe it's true that graduate schools didn't accept Hampshire students because our transcripts are full of narrative evaluations. I do believe it's true that, like you, some people -- particularly parents of potential students -- perceived this to be a problem, even though it wasn't (and isn't).

Second, I find the point about Hampshire resisting change to be pretty baffling and lacking any concrete evidence. Hampshire's structure and curriculum have undergone many changes, some of the quite substantial, throughout its history. For example, Division 1 was originally a series of independent works designed to demonstrate mastery of each school's method of inquiry, and some number of them had to be completed to move on to Div 2. But often, students ended up in Div 3 and unable to graduate because of a lingering Div 1 that had yet to be finished. When I was at Hampshire, Div 1 looked more like a distribution requirement: students had to take a class in each of the 5 academic schools (natural science, interdisciplinary arts, etc.) as well as a class designed as a "tutorial" which incorporated significant independent work and writing, to help prepare students for Div 2. This was altered again around the restructuring that occurred in the 2010s.

I think your bigger point -- that Hampshire wasn't oriented towards producing corporate cogs, and that's what some people want from a college education, is very true. But ultimately, I don't think this is what led to Hampshire's closing.