It’s worth noting that Northeastern (as well as some other 70K schools like Tulane, Case Western, etc) have competitive merit that can bring down the price by 10-30K. It’s not easy to get but for a competitive applicant it should be well worth the application. Most of the merit awards are auto-considered with no separate application. So generally you may not want to look at it from a need-based aid perspective but from a merit hunting one.
For that chance, Northeastern and Case sound like two good options I’d put on the list given his interests/area of study, and there are more options than that if you dig for merit.