// about
About Final Bell
Final Bell is a catalog of secular private colleges that closed when the money ran out — Mount Ida, Green Mountain, Wells, and the rest — small, tuition-dependent institutions caught by the enrollment cliff. Each case is traced from the founding to the dated closure.
What you'll find here
- The institution, what it was and whom it served, the year founded, and the year it ended — stated up front
- How long it lived and how big it got — the lifespan and peak enrollment — in a four-cell stat bar
- A documented timeline, a three-act account, and exactly five contributing factors
- Why it ended and the exact fate — closed, merged, absorbed, acquired, saved, or revived
- Transferable lessons, and real references from the closure record and named higher-education journalism
Final Bell is part of Alma Mater — a reference network on closed colleges and universities: the institutions that shut down, lost accreditation, or were absorbed out of existence, each resolved by the documented date the institution ended.