UMass Launches Free Tuition Program
The University of Massachusetts announced a new program offering free tuition to potential students who are in financial need.
According to a press release, this program will begin in the Fall of 2025 and will be open to undergraduate students from households earning $75,000 or less. The program will cover four years of tuition and mandatory fees at all UMass campuses. This program will be funded by federal, state, and university-funded financial aid.
UMass President Marty Meehan said in a statement, “These programs are highlighting how truly affordable a UMass degree is, and I applaud our UMass chancellors for their efforts to ensure students and families are aware of that fact.”
Meehan added, “Since 2015, the University of Massachusetts system has made record investments in university-funded aid, boosting it by 73 percent to $409 million annually. Our record institutional aid combined with the historic expansion of state financial aid through MASSGrant Plus by the Healey-Driscoll Administration and the Legislature, have made it possible for all undergraduate campuses to cover the costs of tuition and mandatory fees for our highest-need students.”
Full details about the program can be found at Massachusetts.edu.
9 Massachusetts Colleges in Top 100 of U.S. News & World Report’s College Rankings
Nine Massachusetts colleges have made the top 100 in the latest college ranking from U.S. News & World Report.
The following Massachusetts colleges made the top 100, and their rankings are:
-Massachusetts Institue of Technology (#2)
-Harvard University (#3)
-Boston College (#37 tie)
-Tufts University (#37 tie)
-Boston University (#41)
-Northeastern University (#54)
-University of Massachusetts–Amherst (#58)
-Brandeis University (#63)
-Worcester Polytechnic Institute (#86)
For those wondering who beat out MIT and Harvard to take the top spot in the ranking, it was Princeton University.
How Were These Colleges Ranked?
U.S. News and World Report offers a very detailed explanation about how they calculated their 2025 Best Colleges Ranking. In total, there are 17 ranking factors that determine the list. They are, along with the percentage of importance to their overall ranking:
-Graduation rates (16%)
-First-year retention rates (5%)
-Graduation rate performance (10%)
-Pell graduation rates (5.5%)
-Pell graduation performance (5.5%)
-College grads earning more than a high school grad (5%)
-Borrower debt (5%)
-Peer assessment (20%)
-Financial resources (8%)
-Faculty salaries (6%)
-Full-time faculty (2%)
-Student-faculty ratio (3%)
-Standardized tests (5%)
-Citations per publication (1.25%)
-Field-Weighted Citation Impact (1.25%)
-Publication share in the Top 5% of Journals by CiteScore (1%)
-Publication share in the Top 25% of Journals by CiteScore (0.5%)