UMass Boston is the only 4-year public university in Boston and the only campus in the UMass system whose students are predominantly people of color. UMB’s urban mission includes “serving the public good of our city” by making sure that the school can provide quality education to the working class people who live here and by giving back to our communities.

But for decades, Massachusetts has disinvested from public higher education and the UMass system has failed to prioritize its most diverse campus, leaving UMass Boston increasingly inaccessible to the students it is supposed to serve, in debt, and tottering on a crumbling foundation.

Governor Charlie Baker, UMass President Marty Meehan, UMass Trustees, and UMB administrators are using the crisis they and their predecessors have created to sell out the university’s urban mission:        

• Making cuts to research centers and institutes that provide services to people of color, veterans, homeless people, and the community at large.

• Closing the daycare center and pool that were available to local students and the surrounding community

• Restricting the food assistance program for our most vulnerable students

• Making UMB harder for working class students to attend by hiking tuition, limiting evening class options, and raising already outrageous parking fees

• Selling off UMB property to developers and contributing to the gentrification of Dorchester

• Laying off faculty and staff

• Allowing UMass Amherst to take on massive debt to purchase its own satellite campus in the Boston suburbs while using UMass Boston’s debt as an excuse for more cuts!

UMass Boston should be the heart of our city, not a business scheme for state bureaucrats.

We want a UMB that fulfills its commitment to our city and its students – and has the resources it needs to do so.

We demand:

• Fully fund the university and work to relieve its debt

• Stop the cuts, hikes, and layoffs

• Keep campus resources available for the university’s neighbors in Dorchester

• Make sure institutes and research centers can continue to serve the community

• Make UMass administrators and Trustees accountable to the students and community they serve

Sign here to tell the Governor and the administration that #OurUMB needs to work for us!