How did Northeastern improve/achieve its current reputation today?

NashvilleThomas
Tue, 10 Sep 2013 04:40:06 +0000

I don’t think Northeastern really has a reputation as a tier 1 research university- yet. They’ve made great strides in a very short amount of time, and with very limited resources. In the past 50 years, the only other private university to transform themselves in such a quick amount of time was Emory University, and that took billions of dollars of donations. Emory also benefited from being the only major private university in an up-and-coming metropolis, which has resulted in strategic partnerships (the Carter Center, the CDC, Coca-Cola, etc.). Given Northeastern’s current long term strategic plan and financials, it will be difficult to further establish itself as a pre-eminent destination due to limited resources in comparison to other local universities (a $600m endowment vs. 1.6B for BC/Tufts and with less of a donor base). I look forward to watching NU continue to rise - it is a very interesting case study.