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Northwestern University

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Times will get worse before they get better - Financial Coordinator Northwestern University Employee Review

3.0
10 Feb 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The reputation of Northwestern University is strong and has often attracted the best talent. 403b match for benefits of 10% for 5% of your contribution is fairly high. Tuition discounts and additional access to education opportunities. Beautiful campus as well as many buildings on campus.

Cons

Recent financial crisis has hampered the progress of the university as a whole, whether that would be in regards to financial growth, employee retention or quality of education. Projections are for this crisis to continue at least until 2021. Due to this crisis, management mainly focuses on short-term cost savings and in many cases disregards the long-term overall goals. An example of this is the rarely high turnover in our department with no interest on the management's end to retain high quality talent. Non-competitive pay.

Explore other reviews about Northwestern University

5.0
7 Jul 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Good opportunities - Campus accommodations are nice

Cons

- Underpay - $4000 for eight week full time research (40 hrs/week)

4.0
6 Jul 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

It's steady and stable money. Coworkers can be great, and benefits can be good**

Cons

They recently changed all of the benefits due to the government administration pulling federal funding. They changed from Blue Cross Blue Shield to United so the insurance is pretty bad now, with higher premiums and higher copays. You get a 90% discount on tuition, yet also about 97% of the graduate programs are when you'd be working during a 9-5. So it's nearly impossible to actually utilize your tuition discount. There were a lot of budget cuts, and 3% bonuses were one of the first to go. Your base pay is usually underpaid because it's higher education/nonprofit, and the 3% raise is barely enough to cover the rise of cost of living. So now it's underpaid, bad or unusable benefits, and low morale because there were also so many layoffs with the rest of the employees having to do the work of multiple people. Systems in the university are antiquated and it takes forever for anything to get done and most of it is trial and error. They say there is mobility, but it's only lateral if you're lucky. I've been here for two years and there's been such high turnover in senior management including the President that everything feels up in the air.

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