Massachusetts public colleges increasingly popular

(The Boston Globe, November 13, 2013)

Once overlooked amid the higher education elite of Massachusetts, the state’s public universities and community colleges are stepping into the limelight with increased funding, state-of-the art facilities, honors programs, affordable prices, and higher graduation rates. With the rising cost of a private school education, combined with the public system’s big push to improve its standing locally and nationally, interest and enrollment is up at public colleges. In the past 10 years, undergraduate enrollment has gone up by 21 percent, with the biggest overall gain seen at the community college level. Throughout the system, there are 290,000 students at 29 institutions — 15 community colleges, nine state universities, and five UMass campuses.