University of Massachusetts-Boston

Public · Moderately Selective · MA

Photo: 4300streetcar (CC BY 4.0)

School data & stats

TypePublic

LocationMA · Northeast

SettingUrban

Undergrads11,512

Student:faculty15:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate32.5%

6-yr grad rate49.4%

Drop-out rate29.6%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$16k

Out-of-state tuition$38k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity70.2%

Gender diversity55.5%

International6.7%

Identity—

Overview

UMass Boston is the Boston area's only public research university, set on a harborfront campus at Columbia Point and serving one of the most diverse student bodies in New England. It has built its identity around access — serving many commuter and first-generation students at a public price point in one of the country's most expensive college markets — and shares its peninsula setting with the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Academics

Nursing and business are established strengths, and many programs are shaped by close engagement with the city itself, from public policy work through the McCormack Graduate School to urban education. The harborfront location also feeds a genuinely strong environmental and marine-science presence through the School for the Environment, which draws directly on the adjacent Boston Harbor Islands for fieldwork. Class sizes and faculty accessibility tend to compare favorably with much larger flagship publics, since the campus, while a full research university, doesn't carry the scale of a big residential flagship, and evening and part-time course options reflect the university's working student population.

Campus & student life

The campus sits directly on Boston Harbor, a striking and unusual urban waterfront setting shared with the JFK Library and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, but the school is heavily commuter-oriented rather than built around traditional dorm-and-quad residential life. Student culture reflects the city itself — diverse, working, and pragmatic — more than a conventional college-town social scene, and campus programming leans toward evening and weekend events to fit students' work schedules.

Getting in

Admissions is generally accessible and achievement-based, reflecting the university's access-oriented public mission, without the elaborate essay and interview culture of the area's private research universities.

After graduation

Graduates tend to stay in the Boston area, with nursing and business alumni feeding directly into the city's hospital systems and finance and professional-services employers, aided by the university's deep ties to local public agencies and nonprofits through its policy programs.

Worth knowing

Students should know this is a commuter-heavy campus rather than a traditional residential experience, which shapes weekend and social life differently than at other Boston-area schools; the tradeoff is direct access to the city's job market, the neighboring JFK Library's public programming, and a genuinely diverse, often older and working student body.

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Admissions

Acceptance rate83.8%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1070–1290 · ACT 22–29

Test policyoptional

Rec letters1

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

AdmissionRolling

Applying