Boston's reputation as "the Athens of America derives in large part in teaching and research activities of more than 100 colleges and universities in the Greater Boston Area, with more than 250,000 students in Boston and Cambridge únicamente.123 The Boston University is the fourth largest private university in the country and the fourth largest source of employment ciudad.124 also has a campus along the Charles River on Commonwealth Avenue and a medical campus in the South End. Northeastern University, another large private university, is in the Fenway area, and is especially known for its schools of Health Sciences and Business and its cooperative education program. The Wheelock College, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Simmons College, Emmanuel College, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences, and Wentworth Institute of Technology, founding members of the Colleges of the Fenway, are adjacent to Northeastern University. Suffolk University, a small private university known for its law school has a campus on Beacon Hill. The New England School of Law, a small private school of law, was originally established as the only female law school América.125 The Emerson College, a small private university with a strong reputation in the fields of arts, journalism, letters and film, is in Boston Common. Boston College, whose campus was located in South Boston, moved westward. Its main campus in Chestnut Hill is one of the earliest examples of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America.

Boston is also home to several conservatories and art schools, including the Art Institute of Boston, Massachusetts College of Art, the School of Art and Design in New England and New England Conservatory (the oldest independent conservatory the country) .126 Other conservatories are the Boston Conservatory, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Berklee College of Music. Boston has a large public university, the University of Massachusetts in Boston, located on Columbia Point in Dorchester, while Roxbury Community College and Bunker Hill Community College are the only two community colleges in the city.

Several major national universities outside of Boston also have a large presence in the city. Harvard University, the oldest in the nation, is located across the Charles River in Cambridge. The Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School are in Boston, and there are plans for additional expansion Allston.127 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which originated in Boston and was long known as "Boston Tech, he moved to Cambridge in 1916. Tufts University has its medical and dental school adjacent to the Tufts Medical Center, an academic medical institution with 451 beds, a full-service hospital for adults and the Floating Hospital for Children. The Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, is an evangelical Christian college located in the metropolitan area Boston.128
Boston Public Schools, the public school system older in the United States has 57,000 students in preschool through grade 12.15 and with 145 schools, among them are Boston Latin School (the oldest public school in the United States, established in 1635), the High Español (the oldest public school, established in 1821) and The Mather School (the oldest public elementary school, established in 1639) .15 In Boston there are also private schools parochial and charter schools. In 2002, Forbes magazine ranked the Boston Public Schools as the best school system in the country with a graduation rate of 82% .129 In 2005, the student population in the school system was 45.5% Black or African American , 31.2% Hispanic or Latino, 14% white and 9% Asian, compared with 24%, 14%, 49% and 8% respectively in 131 Boston.130