More a mediocre private company than a university
Pros
Faculty are very friendly and accessible. There is a collegial environment and faculty work very hard to create a strong learning environment and do what they can with limited resources in spite of upper management.
Cons
Northeastern is closer to being a middling tech company than a university, and it moves further away from being a university with each passing year. The president and provost do not see the original mission of universities (in-depth research, advancing knowledge, disciplinary expertise, etc) as valuable. In fact, they denigrate it. The senior administration tries to get faculty to funnel their research into niche tech areas (almost completely sidelining the liberal arts) because these areas bring in quick money and have short-run, superficial "impact" (really, it seems to be mainly about flashy visibility in the news). They keep buying new campuses and buying people from other institutions instead of fully supporting existing faculty and enriching the learning experience in Boston. To pay for all the new campuses they have increased the number of students paying tuition to the point where all of the students who apply to go to Northeastern in Boston cannot actually all be in Boston during the course of their undergrad careers. First, they doubled up students in the dorms, and now a significant number of students will be forced to be at another "campus" location during part of their degrees (branded as "mobility"). The business people at the top bill Northeastern as a cutting-edge global university, but the buildings are shabby and tech infrastructure in classrooms is pitiful and frequently broken. The campuses outside of Boston, Oakland, and London are not real learning spaces and don't have regular faculty.
