Northeastern University

Northeastern University (abbreviated as NU or NEU) is a private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male institute before being incorporated as Northeastern College in 1916, gaining university status in 1922.

With more than 38,000 students, Northeastern is the largest university in Massachusetts by enrollment. The university's main campus in Boston is located within the center of the city along Huntington Avenue and Columbus Avenue near the Fenway–Kenmore and Roxbury neighborhoods. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, and 93% of undergraduates participate in a cooperative education program. Northeastern is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education and is a member of the Boston Consortium for Higher Education. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

Northeastern maintains satellite campuses in Charlotte, North Carolina; Seattle, Washington; San Jose, California; Oakland, California; Portland, Maine; Burlington, Massachusetts; Miami, Florida; New York City; London; and Toronto and Vancouver in Canada. The university's sports teams, the Northeastern Huskies, compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA) in 18 varsity sports. The men's and women's hockey teams compete in Hockey East, while the men's and women's rowing teams compete in the Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (EARC) and Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges (EAWRC), respectively.

History

Early days

In May 1896, directors of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association, the first in the U.S., established an Evening Institute for Younger Men to merge, coordinate and improve its classes that had evolved over the past 40 years. A good education for "any young man of moral character" with a YMCA membership was promised. In 1898, the institute held its first classes. In 1903, the first Automobile Engineering School in the country was established, followed by a Polytechnic School and a School of Commerce and Finance.

In 1909, the Polytechnic School began offering cooperative engineering courses to eight students. In 1920, the Cooperative School of Engineering, which later became the College of Engineering, was first authorized to grant degrees in civil, chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering. The cooperative program, the second of its kind in the U.S. after one in Cincinnati, Ohio, was eventually adopted by all departments.

On March 30, 1917, veteran educator Frank Palmer Speare, who had served as director of the institute, was inaugurated as the first president of the newly incorporated Northeastern College. Five years later, the college changed its name to Northeastern University to better reflect its growing academic depth, securing general (A.B. and B.S.) degree-granting power from the Legislature in 1923.

The College of Liberal Arts was added in 1935. Two years later, the Northeastern University Corporation was established, with a board of trustees composed of 31 university members and 8 from the YMCA. Following World War II, Northeastern began admitting women, and completely separated from the YMCA in 1948.

1959–1975

By 1959, when Carl Ell stepped down as president, Northeastern had a local identity as an independent technical university serving a commuter and adult population. That reputation shifted during the presidency of Asa S. Knowles, from 1959 to 1975. Facing a postwar educational boom, the university broadened undergraduate programs, strengthened graduate offerings, modernized administrative and faculty structures, created a Faculty Senate, launched its first-ever capital campaign, reorganized and expanded adult and continuing education, and increased the number of colleges. The university created the College of Education (1953), University College (1960), now called the College of Professional Studies, and the colleges of Pharmacy and Nursing (1964), which both later merged into the Bouvé College of Health Sciences. The creation of the College of Criminal Justice (1967) followed, and then the Khoury College of Computer Sciences (1982), the first dedicated computer science college in the United States.

Academics

Northeastern offers 371 undergraduate majors; 304 of these are combined majors, such as Business Administration/Data Science. At the graduate level, there are 39 PhD programs and 264 other graduate programs. Northeastern had 3,488 faculty in Fall 2024. Academics at Northeastern are grounded in a liberal arts education and the integration of classroom studies with experiential learning opportunities, including cooperative education, student research, service learning, and global experience, including study abroad and international co-op. The university's cooperative education program places over 10,000 students annually in full-time, paid professional positions with over 4,000 co-op employers in Boston and around the world.

Northeastern University is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

Colleges and schools

Northeastern University has eight degree-granting colleges:

• College of Arts, Media and Design
• Khoury College of Computer Sciences
• College of Engineering
• Bouvé College of Health Sciences
• College of Professional Studies
• College of Science
• College of Social Sciences and Humanities
• Mills College at Northeastern University

These colleges house schools and departments. There are also two separate schools, not housed within the other colleges:

D'Amore-McKim School of Business

Northeastern University School of Law

John Martinson Honors Program

In 2024, venture capitalist John Martinson donated $5 million as part of Northeastern's reimagined honors program. Northeastern's John Martinson Honors Program selects students from the regular applicant pool with no separate application. The program includes specialty work in a major field through college-specific choices, including specialized advanced honors seminars and an independent research project. Honors students receive exclusive housing in their first year, placed in a Living-Learning Community in either East Village or International Village. In 2017, the program introduced the Student Assessed Integrated Learning (SAIL) app, which was later retired, as well as a one-credit Honors Discovery course for students to explore Northeastern. In this course, they are introduced to the program's key outcomes: "Stoking Intellectual Curiosity, Creating a Thriving Honors Community, Facilitating Self-Exploration and Discovery, and, ultimately, Making an Impact in the World."

Cooperative education (co-op)

Launched in 1909, Northeastern has one of the largest and oldest cooperative education (co-op) programs in the world. In order to graduate from Northeastern, all students must meet the cooperative education requirement, which can be achieved through a co-op employment, research experiences, or studying abroad. 96% of students participate in at least one co-op during their college career, however students are able to complete one, two, or three employment placements before graduation. When pursuing two or three placements, students alternate periods of academic study with periods of (typically paid) professional employment related to their major. If students complete three co-op employment placements, they typically take five years to graduate. If they complete one or two, they may graduate in four years or less.

Rankings

As of the 2026 edition of U.S. News & World Report rankings, Northeastern was 46th in the National Universities category.

Campus

Northeastern University's main campus is located on 73 acres (30 ha) mostly along Huntington Avenue and Columbus Avenue in an area known as the Fenway Cultural District, part of Boston's Fenway and Roxbury neighborhood, near the Museum of Fine Arts, Symphony Hall, New England Conservatory, and Christian Science Center.

In 2019, the campus was officially designated as an arboretum by ArbNet, making it the only campus in Boston to receive the designation.

The first baseball World Series took place on the Huntington Avenue Grounds, now part of the campus. The site is commemorated in front of Churchill Hall by a statue of Cy Young.

In 2014, Northeastern officially launched a Public Art Initiative to place a series of murals and other art around the Boston campus. Among those whose work has been commissioned are French artist Jef Aérosol, Houston-born artist Daniel Anguilu, Los Angeles-based El Mac and Charleston, South Carolina-born artist Shepard Fairey, known for his 2008 Barack Obama "Hope" poster.

Campus development

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, as enrollment grew to over 4,600 students, President Frank Palmer Speare announced that Northeastern would build a new campus. Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbott, a Boston-based architectural firm, was selected to design the campus near the Huntington Avenue YMCA building, which continued to house library and classroom spaces.

In October 1938, Richards Hall, which housed classrooms, laboratories, and administrative offices, was the first building to be completed. Its light gray, glazed brick exterior, with vertical strips of windows, was replicated in other buildings of what later became known as the 1944 master plan, characterized by a mix of Beaux-Arts and Bauhaus architectural styles defined by stripped-down classicism and open courtyards that resembled those of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology across the Charles River. In a 1934 article, the Boston Evening Transcript described the campus design as "modernistic classical".

In 1961, under President Asa Knowles, the university purchased a 7-acre (2.8-hectare) red brick industrial complex once owned by the United Drug Company to build athletic facilities. Three of the buildings facing Forsyth Street were demolished, but due to a need for more office and lab space, the remaining buildings were divided into four sections now called Lake Hall, Holmes Hall, Nightingale Hall, and Meserve Hall.

Major recent developments have included Northeastern becoming recognized as an arboretum, opening a US$225 million research and laboratory complex known as the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex (ISEC) in 2017, launching the Institute for Experiential Artificial Intelligence with a US$50 million donation, and renaming the College of Computer and Information Science to the Khoury College of Computer Sciences with another US$50 million donation from Amin Khoury.

Network campuses

The university operates a number of satellite locations in Massachusetts, including the George J. Kostas Research Institute in Burlington, a Financial District campus in the Hilton Hotel near Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, a Dedham Campus in Dedham, and a Marine Science Center in Nahant. The Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security, which opened in 2011, contains the Laboratory for Structural Testing of Resilient and Sustainable Systems (STReSS Laboratory). The laboratory is "equipped to test full-scale and large-scale structural systems and materials to failure so as to explore the development of new strategies for designing, simulating, and sensing structural and infrastructure systems".The university has also launched a number of full-service remote network campuses in North America, including in Charlotte, North Carolina, in October 2011, Seattle, in January 2013, San Jose, California, in March 2015, Toronto, in 2016 and Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2019. In January 2020, Northeastern announced that it was opening the Roux Institute in Portland, Maine, a new research institute focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning in digital and life sciences. The decision came after Northeastern was selected for a $100 million donation by David Roux, in hopes of turning the city into a new tech hub and in an attempt to spark economic growth in the region.

More recently, the university has continued to focus on global expansion. In late 2018, Northeastern announced the acquisition of the New College of the Humanities, a small private London-based college founded by the philosopher A. C. Grayling. The move was seen as unorthodox, as most U.S. colleges have typically chosen to build new campus branches abroad, rather than purchasing existing ones.

On July 1, 2022, Mills College in Oakland, California, was renamed to Mills College at Northeastern University through a merger between the university and the liberal arts college, which had financial troubles.

On May 29, 2024, Northeastern and Marymount Manhattan College in New York City announced a merger that will create Northeastern University – New York City. The merger was finalized in the summer of 2026.

Student life

Undergraduates at Northeastern matriculate from all 50 states, with around 20% from the state of Massachusetts. The next-largest feeder states are New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.

Northeastern has more than 18 varsity teams competing in the NCAA, over 30 club sports teams and over 400 student clubs and organizations. Among the student-run organizations are: Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL), Student Government Association (SGA), Resident Student Association (RSA), The Huntington News, Northeastern Television (NUTV), Social Justice Resource Center (SJRC), and the Council for University Programs (CUP).

Northeastern hosts six student-run a cappella groups on campus: three mixed ensembles (Distilled Harmony, The Downbeats, and The Nor'easters), two treble ensembles (Pitch, Please! and Treble on Huntington), and one TTBB ensemble (UniSons). All groups regularly compete in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA). The Nor'easters have performed at ICCA finals in New York City three times and won the ICCA title in 2013 and 2017. Pitch, Please! competed at ICCA finals in 2019, 2023, and 2025.

Student government

The Northeastern University Student Government Association (SGA) is the representative body for undergraduate students on the Boston campus. The SGA is composed of students from various majors and is organized into three branches: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. The Executive Branch includes the student body president and executive vice president who are elected by the undergraduate student body each academic year.

Northeastern hosts additional student organizations centered around politics and government. Among these are College Democrats, College Republicans, Educational Freedom Project, YDSA, and more.

Athletics

Since 1927, Northeastern University's intercollegiate athletic teams have been known as the Huskies. Prior to 1927, Northeastern had no official mascot. In February 1927, a pup was selected from legendary Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race competitor Leonhard Seppala's kennel. On March 4, 1927, King Husky I arrived at Northeastern in a campus celebration. Live mascots until King Husky VII died in 1989 and the university could not find a replacement. In 2005, the university resumed the live mascot tradition; the current live mascot is named Moses. The university's official costumed mascot is Paws.

The university's official colors are Northeastern red and black, with white often used as an alternate color. The university fight song, "All Hail, Northeastern," was composed by Charles A. Pethybridge, class of 1932. 18 Northeastern varsity sports teams compete in NCAA Division I's Colonial Athletic Association (CAA).

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