The Best Gay-Friendly Schools

The University of Massachusetts-Amherst is No. 8 on Newsweek’s list of the best gay-friendly colleges. “You can find any kind of background here, whether you are speaking about ethnicity or religion,” writes one student on CollegeProwler.com. “Additionally, the campus is definitely more liberal and is very accepting to gays and lesbians.”

The student body is evenly divided between men and women. At 71 percent, Caucasians make up the majority of the campus population, followed by Asian-Americans at 8 percent, African-Americans at 5 percent and Hispanics at 4 percent.

Founded in 1863, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is the flagship campus of the UMass system. The school had 20,873 students enrolled as of the fall of 2009, and each year it accepts 67 percent of its 29,452 applicants.

Tuition, room and board for the 2009–2010 academic year at the public school were $19,804 for in-state students and $31,301 for non-Massachusetts residents.