I’m looking for more liberal, “hippie” colleges. I get mostly a’s and b’s in schools, and love the Pacific North West. Right now I am looking at Reed and Evergreen, but would like East Coast suggestions too.
Price limit?
State of residency?
Sarah Lawrence, Bard, Marlboro, College of the Atlantic, Bennington-- what are your stats and what can you afford?
Wesleyan, Vassar, Hampshire. Maybe more hipster than hippie, but liberal.
New College in Florida comes to mind, as well as Bard College in NY. Others would be Pace University, Bennington, or, as something different, Warren Wilson College.
But, as @ucbalumnus writes - it depends on your finances and your state of residence.
Hampshire would be grest a few years back. It was actually hippy. Big yurt on campus and all. I would stay away for now.
The other recommendations are excellent. UVM has a decent amount of hackysack and Phish concerts too. lol.
Lewis & Clark in Portland, OR.
UC-Santa Cruz
Warren Wilson and possibly UNC-Asheville, Skidmore.
It is debatable whether “liberal… free spirited… hippie” in the 60’s mode exist any longer. There are certainly “progressive” colleges, but that has very little to do with classic liberal values. Maybe Bennington or University of Vermont in Burlington. Towns are still kind of hippie dippie, anyway.
Humboldt
Another vote for Sarah Lawrence. D19’s friends are having a fantastic time there. On the west coast, try Whitman.
Academically, Evergreen State may be the most “free spirited”, since it has a completely open curriculum for a BA degree (180 quarter hour credits, no major required, no general education required).
But it can be expensive for non Washington residents.
Goucher
NOT Vassar or Wes, and have my doubts about Bard. Liberal, yes, but definitely not ‘free-spirited’.
Warren Wilson definitely has a hippie feel, but a student uninterested in its primary strengths (environmental science and creative writing) may find the academic offerings a bit lackluster. It’s relatively unique as one of the handful of Work Colleges.
https://www.warren-wilson.edu/academics/work-program/requirements/
UNC Asheville is more of a mixed bag. (Full disclosure: My sister is a recent UNCA grad and still lives in Asheville.) Most students are very liberal, but there’s a small but noticeable conservative streak due to the college attracting many students from Appalachia. It’s probably the most queer-friendly college in NC after Duke and Carolina. Academically it’s a very well-rounded school with an extremely rigorous core curriculum.
The town of Asheville itself has been changing with gentrification, and these days there’s more hipsters than hippies. Great craft brewery scene, though!
I second Warren Wilson and Evergreen State. UNC Asheville definitely not free-spirited, lots of hard work and challenging gen eds. Hippies are generally gone from Asheville, as it’s the most expensive city (highest COL) in NC now. https://www.salary.com/research/cost-of-living/nc
Agree also with collegemom that many of the schools mentioned while liberal, with some prolific drug use (Reed, Sarah Lawrence) that doesn’t mean the students are free spirited…sometimes far from it.
True free-spirits would find any college experience at complete odds with their desired lifestyle.
Colorado College - Dude in the birkenstocks, pass the weed
Grinnell
Lewis & Clark for sure. I would describe Whitman as liberal and artsy, not sure about hippie. Pitzer in Claremont CA. I haven’t seen anything on the east coast that compares to the CA/PNW hippie/hipster culture. I hear Oberlin might fit the bill too.
A good starting point for further research might be Princeton Review’s Tree Hugging Vegetarians list. Schools that have appeared on that list from 2010-2020 include:
Bard College
Bard College at Simon’s Rock
Beloit College
Bennington College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College (female)
Carleton College
Champlain College
Clark University
College of the Atlantic
Colorado College
Columbia University
Earlham College
Eckerd College
Emerson College
Eugene Lang College
Evergreen State College
Goucher College
Green Mountain College [CLOSED]
Grinnell College
Guilford College
Hampshire College Ithaca College
Kalamazoo College
Lewis & Clark College
Macalester College
Marlboro College [CLOSING; will merge with Emerson]
McGill University
Mills College (female)
New College of Florida
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pitzer College
Prescott College
Reed College
Sarah Lawrence College
Skidmore College
SUNY Coll of Env Sci & Forestry
SUNY Purchase College
UC Santa Barbara
UC Santa Cruz
U Central Florida
UNC Ashville
University of Puget Sound
University of Toronto
University of Vermont
Vassar College
Warren Wilson College
Wesleyan University
Whitman College
There’s quite a vast range of schools here of widely varying size, selectivity, rigor, type (public/private, religious/non-religious, single-gender/coed, undergrad-only LACs, research universities, etc.), academic focus, affordability, weather, location and character etc.
For example, Reed would be very very different from Hampshire; academically, Reed is more like Carleton. Other schools are less academically traditional and more experimental. Some schools will have an open curriculum (e.g. Brown) while others will have distribution requirements. Some of these institutions are on shaky financial ground (e.g. Hampshire) while others have big endowments and healthy finances (e.g. Grinnell). Some schools offer merit aid while others are need-based only. Some are test optional, some aren’t. Some have a narrow academic focus while others don’t. Some run on traditional semesters, others have the 4-1-4 calendar, others run on trimesters, and at least one (Colorado) on the block plan. You have urban, suburban, rural, East, West, Midwest and even the South.
So, decide what you would like based on these other criterea to help narrow down your search.
[*] might soon close or merge with another institution.