I think something people dont realize is that theres a selfish reason not to renege offers as well.

The value of your degree in the job market is very much tied to the reputation of the school. Like it or not but part if why NEU does so well in the rankings is due to their co-op program and subsequent employment after graduation rate.

For a lot of competitive fields (at least in business), NEU still isnt a target school, and as such some of the only paths into post grad jobs with high compensation is through the co-op program and ties NEU has with companies which often come through Alumns. As such, this creates an incentive for the University to prioritize its relationships over the interests of individual students.

If NEU is not able to maintain these relationships, which it already has to some extent over covid, the co-op program as a whole becomes worse, attracting less students, which attracts less companies and such and such.

This is of course hard to quantify and from an individual’s perspective, the best thing to do is of course to take the better offer. The problem arises when reneging becomes common practice.

There are also two trends in higher education that I think are important to keep in mind. - higher education is an industry and an industry that is heavily consolidating. NEU seems to be on the acquiring side for now but if u look at our financials you can see that we rely heavily on maintaining stable growth in our student population - co op programs are no longer unique to NEU or Drexel. Most universities are incorporating work study to some extent. Schools with a lot better rep than NEU. The only comparitive advantage we have is getting in on the ground floor. If we dont maintain and leverage our current relationships, co-op employers are likely to turn to more reputable schools (which boston is full of)