Credit: Phil Bond/Mills College 
Credit: Phil Bond/Mills College Mills College in Oakland, which had previously planned to close by 2023 because of financial woes and falling enrollment, has announced a merger with Northeastern University in Boston that would keep the campus open.
The new plan would allow the historic college campus to stay alive indefinitely but would cease its tradition of serving only women in its undergraduate programs and would end its independence. The college, which last year enrolled about 960 students, would become known as Mills College at Northeastern University, and current Mills students could stay or possibly transfer to Northeastern’s main campus in Boston, according to an announcement.
The deal is not finalized and much remains open to negations. The Mills College board has authorized the talks with Northeastern “because we share a vision of what education can and must be in the coming decades. The missions of Mills and Northeastern are aligned through our shared commitment to access, social justice and urban education,” according to a statement from Mills President Elizabeth Hillman.
Northeastern already has satellite programs in San Francisco and San Jose. The university has five other satellite campuses, including two in Canada — Toronto and Vancouver.
Men would be allowed to enroll as undergraduates, Hillman said. “Mills will become gender inclusive on the undergraduate level, but will forever be shaped by our legacy as a historically women’s college,” her statement said.
Mills College began as a religious school in 1852 and moved in 1871 to its current location on 135 lushly landscaped acres. It kept its tradition of having a women-only undergraduate student body, although it admitted men to graduate programs. In 1990, Mills leaders proposed to start admitting undergraduate men as a solution to financial problems. But Mills rescinded that attempt and undergraduate men were never enrolled after an uproar among alumnae and a two-week-long student strike.
Enrollment of Mills has declined more recently, falling 14% from 1,122 in fall 2019 to 961 in fall 2020.
Northeastern enrolls about 19,000 undergraduates and 8,600 graduate students. It is unclear how the announcement would affect its existing programs in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, where it offers graduate programs in computer science and biotechnology and a semester in the West for undergraduate internships. The university is known for its so-called cooperative form of education, which combines on-the-job experience and internships with classroom learning.
In March, Mills said it would stop enrolling new undergraduates after fall 2021 and that it would “most likely” grant its last degrees of any sort in 2023. That triggered protests from alumni and students who contended the value of campus land could help the college survive.
Clearly, now three months later, Mills’ governing board has had second thoughts about totally shutting down. It was not revealed Thursday whether Northeastern reached out to Mills first or the other way around or whether mergers with other universities were examined as well. Also undisclosed were financial details, including the fate of Mills’ endowment, which was reported to be about $190 million last year.
Soon after the March announcement about Mills closing, UC Berkeley said it would rent dorms and classroom space at Mills next fall. UC Berkeley, just nine miles away and crunched for space, announced plans for 200 freshman to live on Mills’ Oakland campus and take many of their introductory classes there.
That plan for UC to expand into Mills now appears to be dead. “While we have worked collaboratively over many decades with UC Berkeley, we have been unable to establish a public/private partnership that would further expand our association at this time,” a statement on the Mills College website said.
Under the merger being negotiated, Northeastern would honor scholarship and financial aid commitments already made by Mills to current students, and “a significant number” of Mills faculty and staff would be offered continued employment at the Oakland campus or other Northeastern locations, the announcement said.
The news of the college’s survival, albeit as a satellite of a larger university, may be encouraging to small, private nonprofit colleges. Some of those schools have struggled financially for decades, and the pandemic has worsened those difficulties, experts said.
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Laura Scholtz, 1962 graduate Mills College 8 months ago8 months ago
Your information is not entirely accurate. Mills was begun by missionaries as a seminary for women at a time when education for women was not easily available. It has produced many world and business leaders, famous artists and musicians and teachers. Mills has enough financial resources to continue as an independent college, but has been financially mismanaged (see analysis by economist Dr. Matthew Hendricks of University of Tulsa). The administration did … Read More
Your information is not entirely accurate. Mills was begun by missionaries as a seminary for women at a time when education for women was not easily available. It has produced many world and business leaders, famous artists and musicians and teachers. Mills has enough financial resources to continue as an independent college, but has been financially mismanaged (see analysis by economist Dr. Matthew Hendricks of University of Tulsa).
The administration did not recruit students or actively fund-raise, and spent more money on administration than on curriculum, faculty, or students (see financial records of the college). Northeastern University has nothing in common with Mills which is famous for its deep liberal arts offerings, including art, art history, music, dance, writing, school of education. Northeastern is a business and technical school and has already eliminated the famous Mills College degrees in the liberal arts. Northeastern appears to be considering sale of Mills world famous art and museum collection. Half the faculty have lost their positions and half the existing students have left. The students, community of Oakland, the state, and the world lose an extraordinary historical and educational institution (see #save MillsCollegeCoalition).
Holly Baird 1 year ago1 year ago
I’m saddened to hear the news of my alma mater becoming a coed college in its sacrifice to stay financially stable. We as a world are not quite there in ensuring young women to have an open and safe place to develop their confidence/voice/strength of being without the male gaze and scrutiny therein. Long live Smith and Mt Holyoke! Stay strong sisters! Holly Levlyn, Mills Class of 2001 PS: I’ll be more than happy to give … Read More
I’m saddened to hear the news of my alma mater becoming a coed college in its sacrifice to stay financially stable. We as a world are not quite there in ensuring young women to have an open and safe place to develop their confidence/voice/strength of being without the male gaze and scrutiny therein.
Long live Smith and Mt Holyoke! Stay strong sisters!
Holly Levlyn, Mills Class of 2001
PS: I’ll be more than happy to give my alumnae $ to Mt Holyoke and Smith if/when Mills becomes coed and I’ll encourage my sister Mills alums to do the same.
Bliss Garcia 2 years ago2 years ago
My mother Lois Hodges graduated from Mills College around the. 1920’s. She was married on the Mills campus. No full pictures of her graduate class were available. I am proud to see where Mills will not close. Thank you.
Occupy Mills 2 years ago2 years ago
Now some of the Mills College Board of Trustees have sued the President, the Chair and certain other Trustees in an attempt to stop this merger. They allege the College has failed to produce evidence showing that any merger needs to happen. The lawsuit was filed June 7, by the time we learned about it July 3 President Hillman had already tossed UC Berkeley out and now was proposing a brand new merger with Northeastern. She … Read More
Now some of the Mills College Board of Trustees have sued the President, the Chair and certain other Trustees in an attempt to stop this merger. They allege the College has failed to produce evidence showing that any merger needs to happen.
The lawsuit was filed June 7, by the time we learned about it July 3 President Hillman had already tossed UC Berkeley out and now was proposing a brand new merger with Northeastern. She has announced that negotiations are just beginning, but all her staff can have 3% pay rises retroactive to July 1. What happened to the so-called “financial emergency”? This is out-of-control chaos. Someone needs to investigate the mismanagement, and what is happening to the billions of dollars of assets of Mills College’s land, buildings, endowment, and art collection.
Rici Lake 2 years ago2 years ago
I think much remains open to *negotiations* (paragraph 3). Although of course negations can be the end result of negotiations, it seems a bit pessimistic to start with that premise.
JD 2 years ago2 years ago
Mills College was not originally founded as a "religious school." In the mid-19th century, women's academies were termed seminaries to denote the seriousness of their curriculum. Some of these institutions went on to become colleges. My understanding is that the seminary precursor to Mills College was a private secondary school for young women. Not a religious school. Interesting that changing from a women's college with a history of hard-fought battles to remain as … Read More
Mills College was not originally founded as a “religious school.” In the mid-19th century, women’s academies were termed seminaries to denote the seriousness of their curriculum. Some of these institutions went on to become colleges. My understanding is that the seminary precursor to Mills College was a private secondary school for young women. Not a religious school.
Interesting that changing from a women’s college with a history of hard-fought battles to remain as such to a school that admits men is reframed as being “gender inclusive.” Woke marketing.
achy obejas 2 years ago2 years ago
I'm unclear why this is presented as positive. Mills has a unique history as an independent women's college. This merger will erase all that, turning into a satellite campus for Northeastern. This isn't a knock on Northeastern, but that's not the same thing as keeping Mills open – it's not abt use of the campus, it's abt the curriculum, the faculty, the values, the community. Those will undoubtedly and unequivocally change. Here's a tip for your … Read More
I’m unclear why this is presented as positive. Mills has a unique history as an independent women’s college. This merger will erase all that, turning into a satellite campus for Northeastern. This isn’t a knock on Northeastern, but that’s not the same thing as keeping Mills open – it’s not abt use of the campus, it’s abt the curriculum, the faculty, the values, the community. Those will undoubtedly and unequivocally change.
Here’s a tip for your reporter: Don’t just find out what happens to the endowment, find out why the proposed merger with UC Berkeley, why Hillman told the campus paper in December 2020 she had no worries that Mills would close and then announced a closure three months later, why none of the talks around closure were disclosed (there was no effort to publicly keep the school open – no campaign at all around the issue), what the proposed institute will do and who will benefit besides Hillman. These are legitimate questions that Hillman and the administration are not acknowledging.