Admitted to both, like both, NU was first choice. Got some merit aid, but NU would still cost ~$105,000 more over undergrad years. What could make it worth paying that much more, even if we could find a way to afford it? Trying to decide.
Benefit of UMASS besides the price is access to the world class CS research professors and their research. According to US News, it’s ranked #25 nationally in CS for grad school. These rankings are usually done based on faculty quality.
Benefit of Northeastern is co-op, college in Boston, and in general higher performing undergraduates. The CS department there is not too shabby either, ranked #60 in the same survey. However, Northeastern has more of a careerist co-op culture, and I don’t think as many undergraduates consider research careers.
Both are prominent on the recruiting schedules of all companies with a presence in New England
If the economy holds out, I don’t see any chance that a well performing student at UMASS couldn’t get an excellent summer internship.
$105,000 is a huge difference, and I don’t think it would be worth such a big difference.
Northeastern is actually known for its programming language research (ranked #13 in that same survey) as well as their introductory teaching approach (somewhat tied to that research) and is more and more known for research when it comes to CS.
There Northeastern and UMass come out neck and neck. That ranking focuses more on research production / numbers while the US news rankings are explicitly opinion based and now dated 4-5 years, and Northeastern’s department has been rising quickly in that time, now one of the top 25 schools represented in new grads in Silicon Valley.
All that said above, both of these are very true. Unless your family can easily afford the difference or you have a super strong fit preference towards Northeastern and absolutely can’t see yourself being happy at UMass, UMass is the right call. Coming from an incredibly happy Northeastern CS student.
I was an undergrad student as umass amherst and I’m currently a grad student at Northeastern.
One of the biggest differences to me was the people I actually interacted with.
Northeastern students are generally more career focused and talk about their professional lives (co-op, jobs, internships, etc). When I was at umass, everyone only cared about what was going on for the weekend.
UMass has more students and the campus is larger (takes about 20 minutes to walk from one side of campus to the other).
UMass’s food ranged from average (if you went to franklin or worcester) to great (if you went to hampshire or berkshire dining commons). Not many places deliver food in Amherst.
Umass classes have a lot of people. In the 100 level courses you can have up to ~400 people in a lecture hall. Once you hit senior level courses you’ll still have ~150 people in each class.
Wifi was garbage at UMass most of the time. Repeated disconnects and massive ping spikes throughout the entire day (they charge an IT fee now and it got worse).
Northeastern has a more dense campus and takes ~7 mins to get from one side of campus to the other.
Dining at Northeastern is okay, but I have all of Boston if I decide to eat out anywhere and delivery is readily available.
Northeastern has a great co-op program but I’m not sure about how large their undergraduate classes are.
One thing I’d consider is that UMass is the typical college (work hard, party hard) whereas Northeastern is the more career focused school.
I know that many people will tell you to go with the cheapest school, but I think you should consider if you think you’d “fit” in with each school.
I’m not going to lie, I’m glad I got out of UMass since I didn’t feel like I fit in and the days just seemed to drag on until I finished undergrad.
Northeastern prepares you for the real world and having up to 3 co-ops if you decide to take the 5 year route is a huge advantage compared to other students. Your supervisors would be people you could use for references and some of them even offer you jobs for when you graduate. If you don’t plan on going to grad school, $105,000 is definitely manageable in the comp sci field.
If I were in your position, I’d pick Northeastern, but a savings of $105,000 is definitely a factor.
Re undergrad class sizes at Northeastern: 50-100 for intro (many sections, some occasionally slightly larger with recent popularity rise of CS) and 25-75 for upper-level classes depending on required vs elective, specific course stuff, etc. Again with all of the context of previous posts, I do think it’s fair to say Northeastern is better in the teaching department, going beyond rankings based on research. See link below for more there. But the money should be a big factor - any loans or hardships are not worth it.
http://felleisen.org/matthias/Thoughts/Developing_Developers.html
If it puts you into hardship, then I agree, I’d take the cheaper route.
Also are you in state or an out of state student, dolken?
I just want to give a realistic example of financial aid at UMass.
For my freshman year at UMass, my total cost of attendance was ~20,000. By my senior year, my total cost of attendance was ~28,000. This was with keeping the same meal plan, dorm type, etc.
They didn’t adjust financial aid with increases in tuition. For instance if you got a UMass grant of 5,000 freshman year, that’s also the same amount you’d get for your senior year. You’d have to pay more out of pocket or take loans out to cover the tuition/fee hike.
I believe for undergrad students, Northeastern guarantees a percentage of aid every year. For instance, lets say you receive 30,000 in merit aid and tuition is 50,000 (merit aid covers 60%). If tuition increases to 55,000 next year, your merit aid will also increase to 33,000 (merit aid covers 60%).
Someone correct me if I’m wrong about that.
And lets assume co ops for cs get 17 an hour (I’m lowballing this number just to give a worst case scenario, most get more than this especially for 2nd and 3rd co op).
So 17/hour * 40 hours/week * 4 weeks * 6 months = 16320.
Assume 30% of your paycheck goes to fed/state tax and medicare, so ~11,400 for 6 months of co op
Multiply that by 3 since you get 3 co ops for most 5 year plans or 2 for most 4 year plans
$34,200 take home for all 3 co ops
$22,800 take home if you do 2 co ops
I just wanted to provide you with some realistic numbers to help you with your decision.
If it puts you into hardship to go to Northeastern, then take the cheaper route and go to UMass Amherst.
The Northeastern Promise only covers need-based aid, not merit, but will increase by the same amount as tuition increases and will not be reduced.
You also left out living costs in that co-op math, but salaries are also much higher. An average second co-op is safely $25-$30 an hour, so that is $30K before taxes, 22K after taxes, let’s say 9K for housing to be generous for high COL in cities, 3K for food, and 1K for miscellaneous activities. That’d still be 9K a co-op though, for 27K in total for 3 co-ops.
For an internship, it’s only 6-8 months total of working (assuming two internships in CS/Engineering), so the total take-home would be around 10K total after taxes/room/board, give or take. So the net difference, assuming OP stuck with CS/Engineering, is only 14K. It’s worth it to note that switching majors is not uncommon, especially in STEM. For that reason, I usually tell people to treat co-op earnings as a bonus, not something to rely on.
I’ll say this: Co-op makes sure everyone learns the math of daily living in the real world 
Thank you all for the thoughtful posts above. Would be happy to hear more thoughts from others as well.
FYI, UMass would be in-state. Plan to do 2 or 3 industry co-op’s or internships whether there or at NU. While NU appears to focus on more time on co-op, and more standardized co-op schedules, I expect/hope that UMass also has reasonably good internship/co-op opportunities for Computer Eng / Comp Sci majors, like @ClassicRockerDad has suggested. (And if done as summer internships, that might allow easier graduation in four years from UMass, although that is not make-or-break for me.)
The co-op income/cost analysis is illuminating, but I agree with @PengsPhils that while co-op net income would be a nice bonus, it is not a major decision point for me and my family, esp. compared to the much larger $105K school cost difference. There are many variables about co-op/internship choices, college and career path (4/5 yr, maybe BS/MS?), etc., that will be hard to predict compared to the base cost of attendance.
Do you/your parents even have th 26K per year on hand for NEU or would that be hardship? If you don’t have it, then your decision is easy. You are not really losing quality by going to UMASS since they have a great program. What you are losing (if that is important to you) is being in Boston, being surrounded by generally more accomplished students who are more geographically diverse, and you are missing out on the 6 month coops. What you gain at UMASS (if this is what you like) is the traditional college experience w/ large spread out campus out in the country, lots of Frats/Sororities etc… program vs program - they are compatible, plus you will get great internships. The difference is a different college experience.
Minor note: The NU Promise increases need-based aid by the same percentage as tuition, not the same amount, which can make thousands of dollars of difference for some.
Parents would be dipping into savings and assets for retirement, and I would share some of the burden with loans, but we could find a way. So it is possible, but we need to consider value, pros/cons. (Note: My parents are also contributing to these posts, esp. regards the financial aspects.)
I am also wondering how the workload and stress levels compare at these schools. Senior year in HS with multiple AP’s and sports & EC’s has been pretty heavy for me.
Hey! I’m actually a current freshman at UMass Amherst, so maybe I can help out a little. I applied to Northeastern as well, and the cost difference was definitely significant. In high school, I also had a lot of APs, sports, and extracurriculars, and it was a lot for me too. At UMass, it’s much easier to manage my time, and the stress level is definitely lower since you have plenty of time to prepare for exams/finals and don’t have the same classes every single day. I live in the Northeast Residential Area, and I promise it’s extremely easy to stay away from frats and sororities if that’s not what you’re into, as all of my friends and I do so. Unfortunately, college is such a big financial undertaking in this age, so money is definitely a factor. One of the biggest reasons as to why I chose UMass was the affordability factor, but I honestly love it here. I’m a microbiology major, but my friends are computer science, and they all seem to like their professors (and you can always look at the Rate My Professor page for them as well). As for internships, co-ops, etc., I’m just a second semester freshman, but I’m already working in a lab on campus. Again, I can’t speak for computer science specifically, but there are a lot of resources here that could probably find something for you if you put in the time to make it happen. Whatever you choose, I wish you the best of luck!
Northeastern CS is a good chunk of time but not a take over your life kind of deal. Many people go here for Boston (at least partly) and would be very sad to not have a social life in addition to academics. For example, I’m pretty busy today with a few large CS projects but I’m still likely going out to see a late movie tonight and have plans for my weekend beyond work. I’d say based on the summary above that Northeastern is a bit more of a workload, but not by a ton. Co-op is an added thing to juggle, but you’d have to do internships with less formal support at UMass, so I think that washes out to even.
I attended a private prep school and found the work/stress to be similar levels, but there’s a bit of a shift at any college from quantity to quality/difficulty that you should see at both schools, which I strongly preferred. You also get lots more free time to manage yourself - I’m busy today but technically didn’t even have a class.
Northeastern does 4 classes for 4 credits each per semester, while I believe most schools (including UMass? @cfields98 ?) do 4-5 classes at 3-4 credits, usually meaning 5 courses at a time. I find that compared to friends at other schools, it means a shift again towards quality/difficulty over quantity.
@PengsPhils UMass has classes that do vary in credits, so classes normally are 3-4 credits each, with most being 4 until you get further in level. I actually find this helpful, because it keeps you from overdoing it in school. There is a credit limit of 19 credits per semester (although if you wish you can take on more by getting an override on the limit, which is an easy process), and having a lot of the freshman classes being four credits, it really makes you stick to four classes the first year so you can get used to the transition. The credits for upper-level classes can be 3 credits, which allows you to take more classes per semester if you want, and will let you fulfill more requirements without having to worry about getting an override. I like this, as I’m double-minoring as well as doing a certificate, so I can take the classes I need without having to take more than the recommended amount. You only need to take 12 credits to be a full-time student, so you have the range of 12-19 to do however many credits you’re comfortable with. I don’t think this means that you give up quality of the class, as the point is to help accommodate the student, and the professors here (as far as the ones I’ve had), are great, and don’t vary in level for the different credit courses. Everyone will have their own views on whatever school they attend though, and we can each only work off of our own experiences. Again @dolken, best of luck to you!
Thank you @cfields98 and @PengsPhils for the good info!
We hire tons of software engineers from U.Mass Amherst, and the fact that we keep hiring more speaks to our experience with the ones that we have already hired. I don’t recall running into any software engineers from Northeastern.
I think that you would do very well with a CS degree from either. Given that, I would be tempted to save the $100,000. Of course this is only based on my personal experience, and I am not a hiring manager.