Bard College at Simon's Rock, a residential early college program in Great Barrington, Mass., will move to the main Bard College campus in Annandale-on-Hudson in the fall of 2025. The move follows Bard College's acquisition of the former Massena Campus adjacent to its main campus.

The decision, jointly announced by the Bard College Board of Trustees and the Bard College at Simon's Rock Board of Overseers, is intended to respond to decreasing demand for the residential early college model and to provide Simon's Rock students with the full range of Bard's facilities and resources.

"Simon’s Rock has been the pioneer of early college, and as a result of its success and track record, there are now 10 public early college high school campuses founded by Bard in six states and more than 1 million high school students nationwide taking early college courses this year,” said Bard College President Leon Botstein. “Because of that success, and the larger national movement which it inspired, demand for the original residential model is less strong than it was when Elizabeth Blodgett Hall founded Simon’s Rock in the 1960s. With Bard’s recent purchase of the Massena Campus, we now have more flexibility in space that can allow for a more financially viable and educationally rich future for Simon’s Rock by placing it physically proximate to the institution that has owned and run it for 45 years.”

Founded in 1966, Simon's Rock offers an accelerated program for students to start college after 10th or 11th grade. The Academy, added in 2015, is for 9th and 10th graders.

Current students will graduate from the Great Barrington campus through the spring of 2025. Students who choose to continue at Simon's Rock will have the option to do so at the new location. The move will give Simon's Rock students access to Bard's facilities, including the Reem-Kayden Center for Science and Computation, the Frank Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, the Stevenson Library and the Hessel Museum of Art. They will also be able to participate in Bard's events, clubs, musical groups and sports teams.