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Northwestern University

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Don't be fooled by the benefits - Anonymous employee Northwestern University Employee Review

2.0
May 22, 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great insurance and generous time off. They have vacation time, sick time and personal holidays all in seperate buckets which is nice. Some departments are remote/hybird which is nice but sometime due to politics they take it away without warning

Cons

Absoultely no upward movement. They use your current pay against you whenever you try and bump up to a different grade level and call is 'equity practice' as the reason behind not giving you higher pay

Explore other reviews about Northwestern University

5.0
Jul 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great work experience, and I got to work with a professor during the process.

Cons

Can be more difficult to get higher pay

4.0
Jul 6, 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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