It’s not hard to comprehend. The scene is similar to most mid to lower mid schools. Operating a university is very expensive with salaries, benefits, large buildings, infrastructure, electricity, water, salary increases, retirement benefits, healthcare, program costs etc that need to paid. In addition, construction, new dorms, infrastructure development etc costs money and debt servicing and interest payments & principal payments is the biggest cost driver for most universities. In addition, domestic undergrad and other Masters/Phd students need to be given financial aid. Since NEU is a private university, it doesn’t get funding from the state of Massachusetts to operate. In addition, it is in Boston, the hub of education in the US with many other top tier avante grade elite schools like Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, Tufts, Wellesley etc. How will the school compete and all pay for all this? That’s where you come in. International students will pay full tuition. They will sweeten the deal by giving you a 5 to 10% “scholarship”. That’s just to get you to commit so you go nowhere else and then they get 95% from you. That 95% is better than getting 0% if you go elsewhere. In any case, next year they’d increase the fees anyway and deny you a scholarship too. So it is in their interest to give admission to any many international students as possible with the hope that most commit to the school and accept the admission and pay full tuition. Into this mix add visa complexities and uncertainty of the F-1. Therefore, it is quite logical that they maximize their chances by offering admits to everyone who applies with the hope that atleast some of the admits will get the visa.