For context the grad student service fee is around 300-700USD per semester depending on how many credits you take.
So by no means is it free. I do agree with you though that universal access to transit makes it a lot more pleasant and speeds up boarding quite substantially.
Apparently they do charge some routes, but the ones operated by umass now are free to students.
They’d actually train students to drive the buses. ( still do apparently) an interesting skill to leave university with. https://www.umass.edu/transportation/now-hiring)
Umass was interesting. The fees were how they kept money at the school as tuition went to the states general fund. Sports were always covered by those fees which was free basketball tickets (though it was a lottery when I left, but I worked at the paper and would take pictues..)
It was a while ago that I was there (last century..)
This is just a rule they've made: You can have both fares and boarding at any door in the bus. I know this because this is how the busses in Trondheim, Norway are. You can't always pay on the bus, so everyone has their ticket before they get on. They have spot checks by folks that aren't bus drivers. Does it cause some folks to risk not buying a ticket? Yes, but it is obviously not worth doing more checks.
I work in the longwood area of Boston. There are private bus routes that make up for the lack of good public transit for the area. It’s also free with Id.
https://www.longwoodcollective.org/lma-shuttles/shuttle-rout...