With respect to relative quality of CS programs:
The head of the entire college of computing at NEU is a former professor at Tufts. Would it make sense to recruit a professor into a much higher position setting the direction for a much larger program if the department they were part of was less highly regarded?
The current head of the CS department at Tufts was one of the 4 finalists to head up the entire college of computing at Georgia Tech - which is probably one of the top academic CS positions in the country.
The current head of the CS department at Tufts was a member of the 2013 ACM/IEEE committee that developed the curriculum standards for college CS programs. (the standards are reset every 10 years or so).
In the last 10 years, Tufts has won 15 Microsoft undergraduate research awards, Northeastern has won 1. Normalizing for the relative size of the departments, the ratio is much higher.
Likewise for NSF CS undergraduate research awards.
With respect to location:
Tufts has a better location for computer science - Cambridge (i.e. MIT) and the Red Line is the center of the tech corridor in Boston. Between Tufts, MIT and Harvard, there are more tech oriented activities in this area than around Northeastern.
It is somewhat common for Tufts students to continue to work for companies during the school year after a summer internship because of their close proximity. Tufts also gives academic credit for faculty supervised internships during the school year. About 90% of Tufts students have internships, about 70% have two or more. About 70% also do research.
The fact that there are many jobs close to Tufts’ actually negates most of any perceived advantage of the COOP program. Tufts reports higher median salaries than Northeastern despite the fact that students go to school a year longer, and Tufts has a much smaller percentage of professional majors.
When you factor in the opportunity cost of one year’s lost salary, Northeastern will probably be more expensive than Tufts.