UMass Boston

Effective Fall 2022, we are making changes to the way we organize classes in order to simplify our system of tuition and fees. In past semesters, in-person, online and weekend courses were grouped in different sessions – sometimes with different charges, different academic calendars and different rules for course waivers. This created a good deal of confusion for students, faculty and staff. Now the vast majority of courses will all be grouped in the “REGULAR” session and will be treated the same way.
Some (mostly fully online and mostly graduate) programs will continue to be housed in a separate session titled Special Programs and will have different rates. These courses, by and large, are restricted to students who are enrolled in those programs.

We have four terms at UMass Boston: Fall, Spring, Winter, and Summer. Each term has different “sessions” which group together courses that have the same calendar, price structure and administrative oversight. When selecting courses in WISER, you will always see a note about the session in which the course is grouped. Beginning Fall 2022, for the Fall and Spring semesters, we will have three sessions:
- Regular Academic Session - Special Program 1 - Special Program 2

The Special Programs are mostly fully or substantially online programs. The full list can be found above.

When you are searching for a course on WISER, you can see what session the course is in by looking at the “Section” box on the course listing. In this area the session will either be listed as “Regular” or “Spec Prg1” or “Spec Prg2”, as highlighted in yellow in the example below.

Yes, now waivers and assistantships will apply the same way for all courses in the Regular session, regardless of modality (in person, remote, online), day of the week (weekday vs. weekend), or location (on campus vs. off campus).

As long as all your credits (face-to-face, remote or online) are in the Regular session, you will be charged for 12 credits.

Yes. Tuition/fee waivers will now apply the same way to all courses (face-to-face, online, weekend, etc) that are listed in the Regular Session.

Yes. All courses in the Regular academic session will be treated the same way for financial aid no matter whether they are online or face-to-face.

Some programs/courses listed in the Special Program session may be eligible for financial aid. For those that are eligible, aid will be based on the pricing structure for those courses.

Yes, this new system for organizing courses means that all courses in the Regular session will be priced in the same way. This means that online courses will have the same tuition and fees as face to face classes, and that there will be different prices based on residency (in-state vs. out-of-state). For some students, this will mean online courses are more expensive moving forward. We believe this new system more accurately reflects that all of these courses are offered by the same departments, to the same students, with the same level of academic rigor and quality.

No. Fully online and previously specially priced programs will continue to be priced differently than programs/courses in the Regular academic session.

There are a variety of offices that can help you resolve your questions, and the best office to provide answers may depend on your question. You might try connecting with the OneStop, or the Registrar, or your academic advisor.

College of Management online graduate level courses will live in the Special Programs (SP1) session. They will continue to be priced differently from courses in the Regular session. Students will be charged fees for these courses that are the same as online courses fees in the 2021-22 academic year.