List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts
There are one hundred and fourteen colleges and universities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that are listed under the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. These institutions include nine research universities, twenty-one master's universities, and thirty-four special-focus institutions. This number excludes the newly reopened Atlantic Union College, which has yet to receive accreditation. Eighty-five of Massachusetts' post-secondary institutions are private, of which five are for-profit. Thirty of the state's post-secondary institutions are public, a number which excludes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was founded by the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, but later became a private institution.
Government of Massachusetts
Massachusetts shares with the five other New England states a governmental structure known as the New England town. Only the southeastern third of the state has functioning county governments; in western, central, and northeastern Massachusetts, traditional county-level government was eliminated in the late 1990s. All of the land in Massachusetts is divided up among the cities and towns and there are no "unincorporated" areas or population centers, nor townships. Generally speaking, there are four kinds of public school districts in Massachusetts: local schools, regional schools, vocational/technical schools, and charter schools. District attorneys and sheriffs are elected by constituencies that mostly, but not entirely, follow county boundaries; they are funded by the state budget. Though most county governments have been abolished, each county still has a Sheriff's Department which operates jails and correctional facilities and service of process within the county.