As small liberal arts colleges around the country grapple with dwindling enrollment and mounting financial pressures, the College of the Atlantic’s new interim president says the Bar Harbor school has a few advantages working in its favor — among them a healthy endowment and innovative programs she says sets the college apart.
Lynn Boulger, who will serve as the school’s interim president for the next two years, will replace current president Sylvia Torti at the end of this academic year. Torti resigned in mid April.
Boulger’s interim presidency coincides with a particularly turbulent time for higher education. Orders from President Donald Trump’s administration, including a block on visas for students from 39 countries, have added new uncertainty to colleges already under financial pressure.
Boulger, who was the school’s dean of institutional advancement for 13 years, will lead the college amid a wave of small liberal art school closures across the county. Most recently, Hampshire College, a small Massachusetts institution that was once COA’s sister school, announced it would permanently shut down after the fall 2026 semester.
Boulger said the Bar Harbor school’s approximately $95 million endowment insulates it from the financial pressures that have forced schools like Hampshire and Wells College to close.
Although the college receives significant support from its alumni, the greatest donor support comes from the Mount Desert Island summer community, Boulger said. She pointed to the college’s board, many of them summer residents who have helped raise money from their networks, as essential to the college’s financial stability.
“Because of the largesse of the community that wants to have this college succeed, our endowment per student is higher than Tufts, Carnegie Mellon or Georgetown,” Boulger said, adding that the school has an extremely low debt ratio compared to many other colleges.
The college, founded in 1969, also raises $1.5 million through its annual fund, which helps cover financial aid to students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend. More than 80% of the school’s students receive some sort of need-based financial aid, according to the college’s website.
“Now, with the escalating costs of higher ed, we have made a commitment to provide scholarships for students who are unable to afford it,” Boulger said.
International students, some of whom pay full tuition, have been unable to return to the Bar Harbor campus because of visa restrictions. Even students from countries not subject to the ban are staying away, Boulger said, noting that federal immigration enforcement has discouraged some students from entering the country who could do so legally.
International students make up about 20% of the college’s student body, Boulger added.
In light of the latest restrictions, the college has formed a first-year-abroad program for students who will be enrolled in the school but are unable to enter the country. Students will spend their fall semester at an ecological center in Mexico and their spring semester at a wildlife research station in Kenya.
Around 10 students will be enrolled in the pilot program, which Boulger says is the first of its kind since the administration’s travel restrictions went into effect.
Schools are now facing what’s been coined the “demographic cliff”: birth rates fell during the Great Recession and never recovered, meaning the number of high school graduates is expected to decline steadily in coming years. Compounding the problem is growing skepticism about whether a college degree is worth the cost.
“Regardless of what anybody says, the return on investment of a college degree is still the number one lever into the American dream that we all still hopefully believe in,” Boulger said.
The College of the Atlantic has historically capped its enrollment at 350 students, though its freshmen enrollment has dipped in the last couple of years, Communications Director Rob Levin said.
However, the school expects to meet or exceed its freshmen enrollment goal of 110 students next year, in part because of about 40 applications from former Hampshire students, Levin said.
The college will finalize next year’s enrollment numbers once their deadline for transfer students closes on May 15.
