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AG Healey Looking Into UMass-Mount Ida Deal

WAMC
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey spoke with reporters about her concerns over the abrupt closure of Mount Ida College and the plans by UMass Amherst to purchase the Newton campus of the small private school.

Plans by UMass Amherst to acquire the campus of a soon-to-close small private college in eastern Massachusetts are drawing scrutiny. 

The state Board of Higher Education and the State Senate both plan oversight hearings into the abrupt closure of Mount Ida College and the plan by the UMass flagship school to take over the 74-acre campus in Newton.

Attorney General Maura Healey is also seeking information on the deal.

"We are looking into this because when there is an announcement like this there are so many students and families devastated," Healey said.

UMass President Marty Meehan said the purchase of the Newton campus, for a reported $75 million, is a bargain.  

He said it will put Amherst students in close proximity to the booming Boston economy with chances for internships and part-time jobs.

Here is the full interview with Healey, who spoke with reporters after an event in Northampton marking the opening of a satellite of the Massachusetts  Office For Victim Assistance.:

UMassMtIda_Healey.mp3

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.