Students Complain of Culture Shock as Northeastern University Settles into Calif. Outpost

Mills College (CA) is known as the first women’s college west of the Rockies, a small private school on 135 lush acres that specializes in the humanities and was an early adopter of admissions policies for transgender women. But after years of losing students and money, the college in 2021 announced plans to close. While others saw just another example of a failing small college, Northeastern University — 3,000 miles away in Boston — saw an opportunity. And it engineered a merger, completed in June, that would bring it valuable real estate and a residential campus to expand its physical footprint in a desirable part of the country.