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.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts is home to 121 institutions of higher education. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both located in Cambridge, consistently rank among the world's best private universities and universities in general. In addition to Harvard and MIT, several other Massachusetts universities currently rank in the top 50 at the undergraduate level nationally in the widely cited rankings of "U.S. News and World Report": Tufts University (#27), Boston College (#32), Brandeis University (#34), Boston University (#37) and Northeastern University (#40). Massachusetts is also home to three of the top five "U.S. News and World Report"s best Liberal Arts Colleges: Williams College (#1), Amherst College (#2), and Wellesley College (#4). The public University of Massachusetts (nicknamed "UMass") features five campuses in the state, with its flagship campus in Amherst that enrolls over 25,000 students.