Education

The North Central Massachusetts Development Corp. (NCMDC) said it received a $10,000 grant to conduct outreach and programs to entice young people into advanced manufacturing careers.

Worcester Polytechnic Institute has been awarded $1.1 million in federal grants to help revitalize the nuclear power industry, the school announced Monday.

The Fitchburg State University Board of Trustees have selected Richard S. Lapidus to be the university's 11th president beginning in July, the school announced Thursday afternoon.

The state's public universities and community colleges are poised to ask for an additional $48.8 million in next year's state budget, a nearly 9 percent increase that officials describe as necessary to keep public higher education affordable and meet the degree needs of the state's future workforce.

Nichols College in Dudley said it will raise tuition by 2.9 percent for the 2015-2016 academic year, but will hold the line the following year, marking the college's second tuition freeze in three years.

Three educators from outside Massachusetts have emerged as finalists to succeed the retiring Robert Antonucci as president of Fitchburg State University, the school announced.

Strategists are targeting the holiday giving period and the spring commencement season as part of a new, two-stage effort to raise up to $1 billion in private funds for scholarships and financial aid, faculty research and other priorities at the five-campus University of Massachusetts.

Becker College has launched an online undergraduate business degree program that will give credit for work and life experience, the Worcester school announced.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $9.5 million grant to investigators at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to establish a research center that would investigate the cause and treatment the most common form of inherited intellectual and developmental disability, known as Fragile X.

Fitchburg State University graduates who plan to pursue studies in osteopathic medicine will be able to take advantage of a program with a Pennsylvania school after the two institutions signed an agreement.