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UMass Amherst To Buy Newton Campus Of Struggling Mount Ida College

The flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts is making a major expansion into greater Boston.

UMass Amherst is acquiring Mount Ida, a small private college on a 74-acre campus in Newton.

UMass Amherst plans to use it for career preparation programs focused on the tech-heavy and innovation sectors of the greater Boston economy.

"For UMass Amherst and our students this is going to be an extraordinary opportunity," said Ed Blaguszewksi, spokesman for UMass Amherst.

He said the Mount Ida location will not be operated as a satellite campus, as students will not directly enroll there.  But UMass Amherst students participating in the programs may live there.

UMass operates a satellite campus in downtown Springfield.

Mount Ida will hold its final graduation this June.  Its remaining students are being offered automatic enrollment at UMass in Dartmouth.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.