New England out of eight Ivy League schools, New England contains the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tufts University, four of the original Seven Sisters, the bulk of educational institutions that are identified as the "Little Ivies", one of the eight original Public Ivies, the Colleges of Worcester Consortium in central Massachusetts, and the Five Colleges consortium in western Massachusetts. The University of Maine, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the University of Rhode Island, and the University of Vermont are the flagship state universities in the region. At the pre-college level, New
Invest in US the $750 million total, $250 million was awarded in Education Department grants to these 18 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. And $500 million in funding from the Health and Human Services Department is going to more than 40 states to expand Early Head Start and child care programs. The Invest in US and federal funding combined targeted more than $1 billion in funding for early childhood education. Though praised by early learning advocates, the funding was noted by several sources to be