The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Thurston County, Washington, with an Olympia postal address. Founded in 1967, and offering classes in the fall of 1971, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a predetermined path of study. Full-time students can enroll in interdisciplinary academic programs, in addition to stand-alone classes. Programs typically offer students the opportunity to study several disciplines in a coordinated manner. Faculty write substantive narrative evaluations of students' work in place of issuing grades.
Evergreen's main campus, which includes its own saltwater beach, spans 1,000 acres of forest close to the southern end of Puget Sound. Evergreen also has a satellite campus in nearby Tacoma. The school offers the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Master of Environmental Studies, Master in Teaching, and Master of Public Administration degrees.
Evergreen was one of many alternative colleges and programs launched in the 1960s and 1970s, often described as experiments. While the vast majority of these have either closed or adopted more mainstream approaches, Evergreen continues to teach a non-traditional curriculum. The college experienced enrollment declines in the late 2010s. History In 1964, a report was issued by the Council of Presidents of Washington State baccalaureate institutions stating that another college was needed in the state to balance the geographical distribution of the existing state institutions. This report spurred the 1965 Washington legislature to create the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education to study the need and possible location for a new state college.
In 1965–66, the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education (assisted by Nelson Associates of New York) concluded that "at the earliest possible time a new college should be authorized", to be located at a suburban site in Thurston County within a radius of approximately from Olympia. Evergreen's enabling legislation – HB 596 (Chapter 47, Laws of 1967) – stated that the campus should be no smaller than , making it then the largest campus in the state as well as the first public four-year college created in Washington in the 20th century.
On January 24, 1968, "The Evergreen State College" was selected from 31 choices as the name of the new institution. On November 1, 1968, Charles J. McCann assumed the first presidency of the college. McCann and the founding faculty held the first day of classes October 4, 1971, with 1,128 students. McCann served from 1968 until stepping down to join the faculty June 6, 1977, when former Governor Daniel J. Evans, who signed the legislation creating Evergreen, assumed the presidency. Evans left the president's office in 1983 when he was appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of senator Henry M. Jackson. The largest building on campus is named in honor of Evans, the Daniel J. Evans Library Building. The entrance to the campus bears McCann's name, the Charles J. McCann plaza.
In 1982, Maxine Mimms founded Evergreen's Tacoma campus.
In the 1992–93 school year, students chose Leonard Peltier to give the address at commencement, which was the first with a graduating class of more than 1,000. The selection was described as "perhaps the most unconventional commencement speaker" in a published round-up of the most controversial graduation speakers on campuses nationwide that year. Peltier, who was in federal prison, submitted his remarks in writing, to be read by a graduating senior.
In 1999, Mumia Abu-Jamal was invited to deliver the keynote address by audiotape for the graduating class at the college. The event was protested by some.
In 2004, the college completed the Seminar II building, as well as a significant remodeling of the Daniel J Evans Library.
In 2015, George Sumner Bridges became the sixth president of The Evergreen State College, not counting interim appointments. Bridges had previously served as president of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. He followed Thomas L. "Les" Purce (2000–2015), Jane L. Jervis (1992–2000), and Joseph D. Olander (1985–1990).
On December 11, 2023, 21-year-old Evergreen student Jonathan Rodriguez died of carbon monoxide poisoning in an on-campus modular apartment; two other students and a responding campus police officer were hospitalized. A Washington State Patrol investigation found that a tankless water heater installed the previous week had not been connected to standard, and that carbon monoxide detectors had activated earlier the same day but were silenced and reset by maintenance staff, who treated them as faulty rather than as a genuine event. In response, Evergreen discontinued propane-fueled housing units, revised its alarm-response and after-hours emergency protocols, and allocated $1 million to housing safety improvements; the two contractors who installed the heater were later charged with second-degree manslaughter, and the State of Washington agreed in 2024 to a $25 million settlement with Rodriguez's family.
2017 protests From the 1970s onward, Evergreen held an annual "Day of Absence", inspired by Douglas Turner Ward's play of the same name, in which minority students and faculty voluntarily stayed off campus to highlight the contributions of people of color and discuss racial issues; since 1992 it had been paired with a "Day of Presence" reuniting the campus."Day of Absence & Day of Presence ", First Peoples Advising Services, Evergreen State College. Retrieved June 3, 2017. In 2017, following concerns raised by students of color after the 2016 US presidential election and a 2015 off-campus police shooting, organizers reversed the format so that white students, staff, and faculty were invited to participate in an off-campus program while students of color held activities on campus.Jaschik, Scott (May 30, 2017). "Who Defines What Is Racist?", Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved June 3, 2017.
Biology professor Bret Weinstein objected to the change in an email to faculty, drawing a distinction between a group voluntarily absenting itself from a shared space and a group being asked to leave. In late May, student protesters disrupted classes, occupied the office of President George Bridges, and demanded a series of changes including Weinstein's resignation. Campus police informed Weinstein that they could not guarantee his safety on campus, and he held a class in a public park; he and his wife, professor Heather Heying, subsequently resigned and received a combined $500,000 settlement from the college.
A direct threat to campus on June 1 prompted a two-day closure, and protesters caused an estimated $10,000 in property damage. A June 15 demonstration by the far-right group Patriot Prayer led to another early closure, and the 2017 commencement was relocated off-campus. Coverage by right-leaning media outlets drew sustained national attention to the college, and several African American students, staff, and faculty reported receiving harassing and threatening messages in the months that followed.
Evergreen's enrollment, which had already been declining for a decade, fell sharply in subsequent years — from 3,881 students in 2017 to 1,952 by February 2022 — forcing a 10% budget cut and increased student fees. Enrollment began to recover in 2022 with 14% year-over-year growth, followed by 23% growth in 2023 that brought the total to 2,225.
Academics Undergraduate demographics as of Fall 2023 Race and ethnicityTotal White Hispanic Two or more races Unknown Black American Indian/Alaska Native Asian Economic diversity Low-income Affluent
Undergraduate Evergreen is unique in that undergraduate students select one 16-credit program for the entire quarter rather than multiple courses. Full-time programs will encompass a quarter's worth of work in everything related to that program concentration, by up to three professors. There are no majors; students have the freedom to choose what program to enroll in each quarter for the entire duration of their undergraduate education, and are not required to follow a specific set of programs. Evergreen is on the "quarter" system, with programs lasting one, two, or three quarters. Three-quarter programs are generally September through June.
Evergreen has been featured in Colleges That Change Lives.
At the end of the program, the professor writes a one-page report ("Evaluation") about the student's activity in the class rather than awarding a letter grade, and has an end-of-program evaluation conference with each student. The professor also determines how many credits should be awarded to the student, and students can lose credit.
In order to be granted a Bachelor of Science degree, a student must complete 180 credits, 72 of which need to be in science, with 48 of those noted as upper division. This upper division requirement can be satisfied by one year of full-time upper-division science studies.
Evergreen offers an evening and weekend programs and courses.
Graduate Unlike the undergraduate programs, the graduate programs require a student to take a certain rotation of courses.
Evergreen graduate studies consist of the following three programs: Master of Environmental Studies Master in Teaching Master of Public Administration
Rankings
Among regional universities in the western United States, U.S. News & World Report in its 2026 edition ranked Evergreen 67th overall out of 118 schools and 35th among top public schools. In 2025, Washington Monthly ranked Evergreen 32nd among master's universities nationally, including 13th in its "outcomes" category. The magazine had ranked Evergreen first in the same category in 2022.
The Evergreen State College has an acceptance rate of 96%.
Facilities
The campus is in unincorporated Thurston County, Washington.
Daniel J. Evans Library The main library on The Evergreen State College campus is the Daniel J. Evans Library, named after the former governor who signed the legislation that founded Evergreen, and was also the school's second president. The library is home to some 428,000 volumes and 750,000 print and media items overall. The library hosts a number of small viewing rooms and also maintains special collections of rare books, archival material, and government documents. The Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center (QuaSR), a tutoring center for the sciences, is located on the first floor of the library. The library is located in the Information Technology wing of the Daniel J. Evans Library Building. This wing is also the home for Media Services and a large Academic Computing center.
Costantino Recreation Center
The Costantino Recreation Center has a large gym and a bouldering wall. It is open for use by students and faculty of The Evergreen State College and also provides access to the community for a nominal fee. Evergreen's pool and diving well closed on June 6, 2026, after the college cited rising operating costs, a projected budget shortfall, and a state-mandated repair to the pool drains; the closure was originally scheduled for June 30. The college has said it will not make a long-term decision about the facility for at least a year and that reopening the pool remains under consideration.
Environmental reserve and beach