×· Q4 2026
— days to the fall 2027 intake

What new graduate and online students from search are worth to Northeastern in net tuition

Under 1 in 10 of Northeastern's organic clicks reach an admissions or program page, and most of those come from people already searching for Northeastern. On ~319K program and degree searches a month where it ranks, it is top 3 for 21 and gets ~650 visits (Similarweb, Sep 2026). Its search ads, ~$176K a month by Similarweb's estimate, land on separate pages from the ones that rank. Pick a tier, then replace our placeholder rates with Northeastern's own.

Program pages and AI answers
4,800
From program pages moving onto page 1 for the master's, certificate, nursing and online-degree searches Northeastern already ranks for on pages 1–4. Today they send ~650 visits a month. Pages take 3–6 months to rank.
0
Kept at 0 in the headline. AI assistants send ~26K visits a month to northeastern.edu today across all topics (Similarweb); how many are program questions isn't known yet.
Paid search: program-search ads
$25,000
A test on program searches where Northeastern ranks on pages 2–4 or not at all, landing on the program pages. New budget, or re-aimed from brand clicks Northeastern already wins organically.
$13.00
Placeholder until Northeastern's own. Similarweb CPCs across 249 program searches: median $11.74, volume-weighted $12.96; "online mba" $28.98, "accelerated nursing programs" $24.65.
From visit to new student
2.0%
Placeholder until Northeastern shares its own: request-for-information and application starts from program-page and ad landing-page visits.
8%
Placeholder. The least certain rate here: see the sensitivity table.
$35,000
Placeholder, over the program, after scholarships. List prices for 2026–27 run $923–$1,995 a credit hour, ~$46K–$62K for a 30–50 credit master's (Northeastern Student Financial Services).
Net tuition a year from new students
$4.52M
129
new students a year
$4.31
net tuition per $1 of ads
$3.74M
in year one, pages ramping
New students a month, by channel
Program-search ads
3.1
Program pages
7.7
AI answers
0.0
Cost per new student and what the page visits are worth
$8,125
of ads per new student, ads alone
$2,323
of ads per new student, with pages
$62K
a month to buy the page visits
If inquiries enrol atStudents / yrNet tuition / yr

What waiting costs

At these rates, every month without the plan defers about $376,492 of net tuition, or ~11 new students. Program pages take 3–6 months to rank, so work that starts after the new year reaches page 1 late in the fall 2027 cycle: ~57,600 program-search visits a year that go to universities that rank. In the meantime Ahrefs shows Northeastern's organic visits halved since March (1.54M to 765K a month), Similarweb shows referring domains down 14% in a year (72K to 62K), and Google shows AI Overviews on 16 of 20 program searches we tested.

Traffic: Similarweb, US, Jul–Sep 2026 (marketing channels, search performance, website keywords, rank distribution, organic landing pages and search ads for northeastern.edu including subdomains; pulled 6 Oct 2026); Ahrefs, 5 Oct 2026 (organic traffic history, program-search rankings and Domain Rating). Paid spend is Similarweb's estimate; Ahrefs sees ~$720 a month, so ROAST will confirm it in the account. Tuition: Northeastern Student Financial Services, 2026–27 rates (list prices, not net tuition).
Formula: (program-search visits + AI visits + ad budget ÷ cost per click) × visit-to-inquiry × inquiry-to-enrolment = new students a month; × 12 × net tuition per new student = net tuition a year from one year of new students. Year one: ads from month 2; pages and AI ramp over six months. Every revenue figure uses placeholder rates until Northeastern shares its own.
Part of the ROAST × Northeastern search, paid media and AI visibility analysis, October 2026, following our April 2026 conversation. Companion to the AAPC Student-Value Calculator and the CMG Home Loans Loan-Value Calculator.