Poultney, Vt. — Green Mountain College officials announced on Wednesday that the school would close at the end of the academic year due to declining enrollments.

The Poultney school also announced that Prescott College in Arizona has agreed to enroll students who want to finish out their degrees in the same area of study. The two schools are founding members of the EcoLeague consortium of environmentally focused colleges.

Seven other schools, including two in Vermont, have agreed to “teach-out” agreements, which allow students to automatically enroll and finish their degrees, according to a public relations consultant with the college.

Just next door in Rutland county, Castleton University already has organized information sessions this weekend for students who want to transfer.

Prescott will house all of Green Mountain’s student records, hire some of its faculty and create a center, school or institute to carry the Green Mountain name.

The partnership with Prescott and the teach-out agreements still must be approved by accreditors.

Green Mountain leadership held an all-college meeting for students, staff and faculty on Wednesday to announce the decision to close and will be holding additional question-and-answer sessions.

“Our efforts to maintain the Poultney campus as the site where Green Mountain’s unique programs would continue to be delivered did not cease when students left for the semester break a month ago,” Green Mountain College President Robert Allen said in a statement.

“In fact, efforts were redoubled to find a solution but we have reached the point that continued pursuit of these strategies is narrowing the options available for all students, faculty and staff,” he added.

For about 18 months, Green Mountain administrators and college trustees had been discussing a wide range of options for dealing with the school’s strained finances as enrollment declined. But they ultimately were unable, they said, to find a way forward to keep the Poultney campus open.

Enrollment has declined from 775 to 428 students over a six-year period, the spokesperson for the school said.

Green Mountain College traces its roots back to 1836, when it was the Troy Conference Academy. The current iteration, as a coeducational four-year college offering bachelor’s degree programs, began in 1975.

The school is not the only small Vermont college in a dire financial situation. College-going rates are declining across the country, but the trend is particularly acute in northern New England, where the demographics increasingly skew older. Nationwide, private colleges are closing at a rate of 11 per year, according to Moody’s.

The New England Commission of Higher Education, the regional accreditor for the six-state region, last year put two schools — Goddard College in Plainfield, Vt., and the College of St. Joseph in Rutland — on probation over concerns about the schools’ finances.

Probation typically lasts two years, to give schools the opportunity the come back into compliance, but NECHE announced in December it would withdraw the College of St. Joseph’s accreditation in August. School officials there have pledged to appeal NECHE’s decision and fight to stay open.

It’s unknown how many Green Mountain employees Prescott will absorb. Green Mountain officials said staff would be notified of the plan for their positions next week and that the college will hold job fairs on campus with the Department of Labor.