In April 2024, Goddard announced that the college would close at the end of the spring semester, due to financial issues and a decline in enrollment.

Goddard College began in 1863 in Barre, Vermont, northeast of Middlebury as the Green Mountain Central Institute.

[5] Founded by Universalists, Goddard Seminary was originally a four-year preparatory high school, primarily affiliated with Tufts College in eastern Massachusetts.

Pitkin was supported by Stanley C. Wilson, former governor of Vermont and chairman of the Goddard Seminary Board of Trustees; Senators George Aiken and Ralph Flanders; and Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

[10] There was a great need for a program for adults who had not completed college, to obtain degrees without disrupting their family lives or careers.

Based on its use of narrative transcripts instead of traditional letter grades, as well as learner-designed curricula, Goddard was among the founding members of the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities.

Goddard was placed on probation in 2018 by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) because of a perceived "[lack of] stability of executive leadership" and concerns about the college's financial resources.

[16] The main campus in Plainfield, was put up for sale and in late May was announced to be under contract at a price of $3.4 million to an undisclosed buyer.

The fort was on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Admiralty Inlet near Port Townsend, Washington.

In addition to fulfilling academic criteria in the subjects of the arts, the humanities, mathematics, natural sciences and social sciences, undergraduate students needed to demonstrate critical thinking and writing, understanding of social and ecological contexts, positive self-development, and thoughtful action within their learning processes.

During this period, students engaged in a variety of activities and lectures from early morning until late in the evening, and created detailed study plans.

At regular intervals students compiled their work into "learning portfolios" to submit as part of a Progress Review before a cross-program board of faculty.

Undergraduates had to complete a yearlong Senior Study, accompanied by final graduating presentations of work, before being awarded a degree.

[24] The Eliot D. Pratt Center and Library in Plainfield, Vermont, served the entire Goddard College community.

The building also housed several administrative offices, an Archives room with artifacts from the 1800s to present, an Art Gallery, and WGDR (91.1 FM), a college/community radio station serving Central Vermont since 1973.

On May 10, 2021, Goddard donated the licenses for WGDR and sister station WGDH to the Central Vermont Community Radio Corporation.

[26] Featured presenters included Yippie founder Jerry Rubin;[27] spiritual leader Ram Dass;[28] and Larry Yurdin[29] in addition to Danny Fields, Bob Fass, and Paul Krassner from The Realist, a magazine.

[28] The conference embodied both the political activism and the free-love atmosphere of the time: a coalition affiliated with Panther 21, The Guardian, Newsreel, Radio Free People, Liberation News Service, Media Women, and The New York Rat put together a packet highlighting the political side of alternative media.

In 2014, the graduating class of the college's undergraduate program selected convicted murderer and Goddard alumnus Mumia Abu-Jamal to be the commencement speaker.