No soccer at UMass Boston this fall

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Parent sends their kid to Umass Boston for $14k in-state tuition and gets virtual classes, no sports, etc. Parent sends their kid to Amherst College for $65k, you think they will settle for the same virtual classes and no sports? How about BU?

FWIW, MIT has already committed to some number of students being on campus this Fall. Other colleges will fall in line. Umass Boston is really a commuter school. Mostly kids who are working and taking classes, older students coming back to get a degree, etc. Very different demographic and not nearly as many full-time traditional students who value the whole "college" experience. It isn't about "smarter" btw, it's about cost/value. No one I know thinks zoom classes have the same value as in-person and living at home instead of being on campus is not the same experience. Most colleges are all about the money, so they'll figure out how to get bodies in seats and parents paying tuition... that means in-person classes and sports.

Most of the country is "all about the money", yet most have not been able to carry on their business as usual during the covid pandemic.Good luck to the colleges. You are going to need a lot of it.

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29 New England colleges and universities ranked higher than UMass in latest Forbes ranking, including UConn (shocker).

USNWR:

#2 Harvard- $52k tuition

#3(tie) MIT - $54k tuition

#3(tie) Yale - $56k tuition

#12 Dartmouth - $57k tuition

#14 Brown - $59k tuition

#29 Tufts - $59k tuition

#37 BC - $58k tuition

#40(tie) BU - $56k tuition

#40(tie) Brandeis $58k tuition

#40(tie) Northeastern - $54k tuition

#64(tie) UConn - $40k tuition

#64(tie) UMass - $16k tuition

#64(tie) WPI - $52k tuition

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Good thing coronavirus has little affect on the younger population most of whom are college aged students.You keep trying for the home schoolin option .

Yes few become gravely ill from it, but they still easily spread it to others, including faculty, staff and the surrounding community. Do you think an outbreak at Harvard or Northeastern won't spread across the Boston area? Do you think local hospitals around Amherst can handle a case surge? Those are the issues, not so much the students themselves.

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USNWR:

#2 Harvard- $52k tuition

#3(tie) MIT - $54k tuition

#3(tie) Yale - $56k tuition

#12 Dartmouth - $57k tuition

#14 Brown - $59k tuition

#29 Tufts - $59k tuition

#37 BC - $58k tuition

#40(tie) BU - $56k tuition

#40(tie) Brandeis $58k tuition

#40(tie) Northeastern - $54k tuition

#64(tie) UConn - $40k tuition

#64(tie) UMass - $16k tuition

#64(tie) WPI - $52k tuition

Add in another 13-15K for housing and most are coming in $65K-70K. It's no wonder families are so desperate for any kind scholarship they can wrangle, athletic or otherwise.

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Add in another 13-15K for housing and most are coming in $65K-70K. It's no wonder families are so desperate for any kind scholarship they can wrangle, athletic or otherwise.

Average financial aid grant—not loan—from the schools at the top of this list is a little over 50k per year. The average financial aid package from umass is about $15k per year. I am a big UMass fan, and we should be investing more in public education, but the math is more complicated than it looks, and the gap is not as wide as it seems if you are not looking closely.

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Average financial aid grant—not loan—from the schools at the top of this list is a little over 50k per year. The average financial aid package from umass is about $15k per year. I am a big UMass fan, and we should be investing more in public education, but the math is more complicated than it looks, and the gap is not as wide as it seems if you are not looking closely.

Yes but those "averages" are also misleading. Many families from this area won't' qualify for any financial aid because they make too much (high cost of living). Some give little to no merit $. If you're crazy smart and your family makes <$65 you're golden. That said, many students get better or fairly close packages to privates as they do from state schools so they'll go for the bigger name private. It's all very individualized, not easy to generalize. It can be worth taking on a reasonable small amount of debt for a richer college experience at a top school. Once you start talking about taking on > $50K just to go private vs state? Then you should have your head examined, even more so if grad school is in the picture

Also a big fan of making our state school system stronger, but in this day and age budgets will be cut terrible. NY state did a smart thing two years ago - they're making in state tuition free at most of their campuses if the NY family makes <100K. That is an incredibly hard offer to walk away from. But, they might not be able to afford such generosity now.

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Yes but those "averages" are also misleading. Many families from this area won't' qualify for any financial aid because they make too much (high cost of living). Some give little to no merit $. If you're crazy smart and your family makes <$65 you're golden. That said, many students get better or fairly close packages to privates as they do from state schools so they'll go for the bigger name private. It's all very individualized, not easy to generalize. It can be worth taking on a reasonable small amount of debt for a richer college experience at a top school. Once you start talking about taking on > $50K just to go private vs state? Then you should have your head examined, even more so if grad school is in the picture

Also a big fan of making our state school system stronger, but in this day and age budgets will be cut terrible. NY state did a smart thing two years ago - they're making in state tuition free at most of their campuses if the NY family makes <100K. That is an incredibly hard offer to walk away from. But, they might not be able to afford such generosity now.

Fair enough--every analysis is individualized. But I wouldn't peg the threshold at 65K, its much higher than that--its well into the 200s for some substantial financial aid. The point is that families should investigate far beyond the sticker price and make an assessment of the relative value and actual costs. Some may be surprised at what they learn.

Also for some, a 50K difference may be well worth it--especially when you look at the graduate school acceptance rates (far better out of some schools than others). And then of course there is a question of what kind of grad school you are looking at--some of the professional schools (law, business, medicine, etc) show starkly different financial outcomes depending on where you attended college. Not fair, really, but that's the way the USA seems to work. No doubt Mass should invest more in its public university in order to change that dynamic--every study out there shows that the $$$ comes back to the state in multiples through the creation of jobs and building a better tax base.