He died of typhoid fever during the first semester, but his school proved highly successful as a first-rate educational institution and was soon renamed Lasell Female Seminary in his memory.

[4] Bragdon further expanded the faculty to make Lasell renowned as a more academically rigorous institution, a prestigious school with a highly scientific approach to domestic work, art, and music.

[2][5][6] Lasell also offered two years of standard collegiate instruction as early as 1852 and is cited as having been the "first successful and persistent" junior college in the United States.

[8] In 1989, Lasell adopted a charter to become a four-year institution (it no longer offers any two-year undergraduate degrees), and began admitting male students in 1997.

"[10] The following year, the college built Lasell Village, an elderly education facility in which residents paid to live and attend classes.

[11][12] In September 2010, a settlement was also filed in Suffolk Superior Court stipulating that Lasell would have to pay $191,314 to over 1,000 students over a conflict of interest in their Financial Aid Department.

[15] Lasell has been accredited by multiple agencies, including the New England Commission of Higher Education,[16] and offers bachelor's degrees in the liberal arts and professional disciplines.

In the low-residency format, students complete five 10-day, on-campus residencies and four semesters in which they work with their faculty mentors remotely from their homes.

Solstice students may concentrate in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, comics & graphic narratives, or writing for children and young adults.

[33] Additionally, the school has a popular women's and men's rugby club, and has intramural sports such as flag football in the fall, as well as basketball in the winter.