Northeastern is not Northwestern. But nor is it Truman College. You can get a good education here, but you probably won't be as challenged as you would be at a major university.
On the other hand, you'll only pay about 10% of what you'd pay at Northwestern.
Northeastern is kind of a blue collar university. Some of the students are older, some have families, many are working full time in addition to going to school. It is also the most ethnically diverse university in the Midwest. This cuts through a lot of the bullshit you find at other universities. On the flip side, a lot of kids who come here don't have great study skills, so this can slow down the classroom experience for everyone.
I've been teaching part time at NEIU for the past 3 years, and I'm very impressed with the dedication and commitment of the faculty. The level of teaching is as high as Columbia, and since undergrads at a lot of the bigger schools tend to be taught by grad students, many of the students are actually getting a better education than they would at a place like DePaul. But it is definitely a no-frills education.
As a student whose classroom experience has been predominantly 100-level (gen ed) classes, I'm going to present this review with the caveat that it could get better in the future. My first impressions of NEIU were that it was comparatively inexpensive and held the bar low for student admissions. Both of these are true, but after several months in the place I can tell you that neither point is an advantage. It's cheap, yes, but you only get what you pay for. The faculty here lacks focus and direction, and lectures meander into pointlessness far too often. It's easy to feel like you're sitting in adult day-care with the freshman lectures. Maybe I'm jaded because I'm seeing the tuition statements and not my parents, but I often feel amazed that I'm actually PAYING for this.
Speaking of money - I advise any student attending NEIU to submit their student loan applications early. Like, half a year early. Trust me, you're not going to regret this. The financial aid office is, be it for staffing or whatever other reason, woefully unprepared to deal with the workload presented to them. For this reason it will take weeks, but more likely months to complete any loan processing. Let this be the single most important thing I can say in this review: get your financials in order as early as you possibly can.
"Campus life" is pretty minimal. There are groups, clubs and a few token Greek establishments, but support for these is spread very thin. NEIU is a commuter school and the mentality of the student body seems to be, for the most part, to get in and get out with as little detour as possible. The campus itself isn't too bad. Some of the buildings are poorly planned for layout, but nothing is too awful. The surrounding neighborhood lacks much to do (eating, entertainment, etc) - but again, many students aren't looking for these things.
Okay. So in conclusion, NEIU is better than Bert's College-O-Rama, but the term "higher learning" is applied here only with much generosity. University bureaucracy is a mess, but not much worse than that of other schools. Tuition is great but you may regret not having paid more for a better school elsewhere.
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