Southern New Hampshire University

<p>Founded in 1932, Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) began as a two-room business school above a nondescript storefront in downtown Manchester, NH. Originally named the New Hampshire Accounting and Secretarial School, the tiny enterprise enrolled fewer than 10 day students and 35 evening students in bookkeeping, accounting, and secretarial courses.</p>

<p>The school’s founder, Harry Alfred Benjamin “H.A.B.” Shapiro, started the program to teach bookkeepers the underlying theory behind the tasks they performed day in and day out. Shapiro believed passionately in the value of knowing the “why” of accounting and not just the “how.”</p>

When the school first opened its doors, it offered one-year courses that qualified graduates for entry-level positions as secretaries, bookkeepers, and junior accountants. Students with higher aspirations could take a second year.

<p>The program appealed to both traditional college-aged students and working adults. Students could begin coursework on any Monday of the year, in a day or night class, and would advance to a higher-level course only after mastering a subject. The flexible format was well received, because it opened up educational opportunities to students unable to attend traditional day classes. Students also appreciated learning from college-educated faculty with workplace experience, a rarity in higher education at the time.</p>

<p>In 1941, after the United States entered World War II, the school shifted its focus to supporting the needs of service members. The first program for active-duty personnel taught military clerical skills to 25 servicemen stationed at the Manchester Air Base (now the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport). The servicemen took typing, business English, and business math courses in downtown Manchester during the day, resuming their military studies on base in the evenings.</p>

<p>The school also began accepting disabled veterans in federal and state vocational training programs and participating in bond drives to raise money for the war effort. In the 1960s, the school expanded educational opportunity to military personnel by offering innovative 8-week courses on military bases across New England and Puerto Rico.</p>

<p>Growth was minimal but meaningful into the early 1960s, until the college earned its accreditation and degree-granting authority under its new name: New Hampshire College of Accounting and Commerce. The name was later shortened to New Hampshire College, after the school became a nonprofit institution.</p>

<p>Then, in just eight years, from 1961 to 1969, enrollment catapulted from 96 day students to 920.</p>

<p>The college rented as much space as possible in its downtown Manchester location, but by 1971 it had outgrown the space. That year, to accommodate the spike in the student population, New Hampshire College resettled in its current location, a 300-acre campus on Manchester’s Merrimack River.</p>

<p>At its new campus location, New Hampshire College continued to expand its academic offerings throughout the 1980s and 1990s, adding bachelor’s and master’s programs to meet emerging workforce needs.</p>

<p>The mid-1990s saw a period of rapid growth. In 1995, New Hampshire College launched its Internet-based distance learning program (now known as “SNHU Online”). In 1997, the institution unveiled a one-of-a-kind three-year bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 1998, it launched its first doctoral program.</p>

<p>The distance learning program featured many benefits of modern online education, including 24-hour access to course materials and use of online bulletin boards for discussion. The program expanded rapidly, with 8,000 enrollments in 23 time zones within just six years. By 2002, members of the U.S. Armed Forces made up 40% of online enrollees.</p>

<p>In the midst of it all, a wave of campus expansion began. The college added several facilities to the community, including academic centers, office space, and residence halls. The campus expansion and program development led to a significant moment in the institution’s history when New Hampshire College became Southern New Hampshire University in 2001. By then, the school was offering a broad range of academic disciplines and degree programs, as well as the services and facilities needed to support a diverse student and alumni population.</p>

<p>Campus construction continued over the years, with the campus expanding from a handful of buildings in 1971 to more than 40. Today, with over 135,000 students and 250 programs, available online and on campus, SNHU is widely recognized as one of the nation’s most innovative organizations and fastest-growing universities.</p>

<p>Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is a private university located between Manchester and Hooksett, New Hampshire. The university is accredited by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, along with national accreditation for some hospitality, health, education and business degrees. With its online programs expanding, SNHU is one of the fastest-growing universities in the United States. SNHU uses an open enrollment policy that requires only a high school diploma or GED.</p>

<p>The university was founded in 1932 by second-generation Russian Americans Harry A.B. "H.A.B." Shapiro, an accountant, and his wife, Gertrude Gittle Crockett Shapiro, as a for-profit institution focused on teaching business, under the name New Hampshire School of Accounting and Secretarial Science. H.A.B. Shapiro died in 1952; there were 25 students enrolled at that time, and his widow, who had increasingly administered the school as her husband's health declined, then ran the school until 1971, continuing as president emeritus until 1986.</p>

<p>In 1961, the school was incorporated and renamed the New Hampshire College of Accounting and Commerce. The state of New Hampshire granted the college its charter in 1963, which gave it degree-granting authority. The first associate degrees were awarded that year, and the first bachelor's degrees were conferred in 1966. The college became a nonprofit institution under a board of trustees in September 1968, and its name was shortened to New Hampshire College in 1969.</p>

<p>The 1970s were a time of growth and change. The college moved from its downtown Manchester site to the now 300-acre (120 ha) campus along the Merrimack River, at the northern border of Manchester with the town of Hooksett, in 1971. Academic offerings expanded with the introduction of a Master of Business Administration in 1974, as well as when human services programs were adopted from Franconia College, which closed in 1978.</p>

<p>In 1981, New Hampshire College received authorization from the New Hampshire legislature to offer Master of Science degrees in business-related subjects, as well as Master of Human Services degrees. (All human services programs would be transferred to Springfield College in Massachusetts by the end of the decade.) That same year, the college opened its North Campus on the site of the former Mount Saint Mary College, which had closed three years earlier. The North Campus became the home of the culinary arts program, which was established in 1983.</p>

<p>New Hampshire College became Southern New Hampshire University on July 1, 2001. The same year, the university completed a new residence hall, New Castle Hall, followed by a new academic facility, Robert Frost Hall, containing the McIninch Art Gallery, in 2002. When nearby Notre Dame College closed, three of Notre Dame's graduate education programs and two undergraduate education programs transferred to SNHU.</p>

<p>When president Paul LeBlanc took over in 2003, the early 2000s recession had affected SNHU with rising tuition and shrinking enrollment. LeBlanc addressed this in 2009 with an increased focus on the College of Online and Continuing Education. Rapid revenue growth from the division helped save the struggling main campus where enrollment had slumped. SNHU focused on increasing graduation rates and adjusting the online college to meet the needs of working adults who comprise most of its student body.</p>

<p>The university purchased naming rights to the downtown Manchester Civic Arena in September 2016, naming it SNHU Arena for at least 10 years in a deal that included internships for students and use of the facility for graduation and athletic events.</p>

<p>SNHU absorbed the faculty and staff at Daniel Webster College along with the engineering and aviation programs, operating the college's campus in Nashua for the rest of the 2016-17 academic year after its parent company, ITT Technical Institute, filed for bankruptcy. SNHU purchased the college's aviation facilities (including a flight center, tower building, and hangar) at Nashua Airport, for $410,000 and enrolled up to 30 students in their Aviation Operations and Management bachelor's degree program. An undisclosed Chinese university, which plans to open a satellite campus, outbid SNHU for the former campus. To accommodate the new students, SNHU converted an unused warehouse on campus into space for classrooms, laboratories, and a machine shop. A dedicated engineering and technology building was later completed in January 2020.</p>

<p>In recent years, SNHU has operated like many large for-profit colleges, with over 6,000 adjunct professors supporting its services and a national advertising campaign that composes as much as 20% of its operating budget. According to Inside Higher Ed, the school currently (as of 2019) has 132,000 students enrolled. It primarily targets nontraditional students, many of whom have jobs and families and cannot attend a residential campus. However, SNHU has outcompeted for-profit colleges with pricing. According to a 2014 article in Slate, "an online student with no transfer credits can get the equivalent of a four-year bachelor’s degree [at SNHU] for about $37,000. A comparable degree at University of Phoenix runs about $52,000."</p>

<p>In 2019, SNHU became a part of Walmart's "Live Better U" program that allows workers to go to college for one dollar a day.</p>