<p>I got into UIUC and UF for ChemE as an OOS student. I had been thinking of going to UIUC, but just recently I received a huge scholarship from UF that lowers my tuition to about 5k a year. Which would be better to go to? UIUC is a great engineering school, and my parents said I could go if I want. But UF would be easier to afford and would save my family and me tons of money. But could I get a good job as a UF grad?</p>
<p>You’re not going to find the same jobs from UF as you would from UIUC - Illinois opens up doors that just won’t be there at UF.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, though, no one can make this decision for you. Only you know how much you value money (a wealthy person and a poor person obviously value $20,000/year differently) and only you know your long term goals and if one school will get you there faster than the other.</p>
<p>^There is much truth in banjos post, but I think the “open the doors” comment is a bit overstated. UF has no trouble placing students in top grad schools and the vast majority of top-employers are not headquartered in florida. Also, it is not clear what the cost differential is, but assuming it is 20K/year, that equates to at least a half-million dollars (in todays money) by the time you retire at 65, perhaps significantly more if you learn to invest and take advantage of risk in exactly when you can most tolerate it when you are young.</p>
<p>^ It is really not that overstated. There are many employers that will visit the top 10 schools but not UF, particularly those that are interested in hiring engineers for non-traditional positions.</p>
<p>True to a degree, but for someone interested in engineering, I’m not sure the difference is significant. And for “non-traditional” positions, as good as Illinois is, it isn’t held in the same high prestige-centric regard as HYPSM regardless.
We will let the OP draw his own conclusions. The WSJ just reported the “top-25” recruitment universities, and Illinois landed at a very impressive third place overall. But Florida landed in a still impressive 9th place:
[Best</a> Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ.com](<a href=“Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ”>Best Colleges & Universities - Ranked by Job Recruiters - WSJ)
Here is the list of companies at UF’s spring career fair (and this is only a subset of on-campus recruitment):
<a href=“https://ufl-csm.symplicity.com/events/students.php?cf=ShowcaseSG2011[/url]”>https://ufl-csm.symplicity.com/events/students.php?cf=ShowcaseSG2011</a></p>
<p>If the OP wants to work for a major oil company, for example, it certainly wont be a problem coming out of UF. At the end of the day, if the OP is talking to a recruitment officer for XOM (which may very well be the same person) , it will make no difference if he is sitting in an office at Illinois or Florida. The offer he receives (or does not) will be based solely on how he performs at the interview.</p>
<p>Notice how the top majors for UF are not engineering. UF is not regarded nationally in engineering circles anywhere near UIUC. It does not draw the same recruiter attention.</p>
<p>As far as that showcase, it’s surprisingly weak. There are only 196 companies and most appear to not be seeking engineering. At Georgia Tech (a school 40% the size of UF), they hit their limit (400 companies) with a 3 year wait for companies to get a booth. Also, most employers were seeking engineering. That tells you the difference between a top school and a lower tier school - you’ll have opportunities at both, but a top school you’ll simply have more.</p>
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Also, it is not clear what the cost differential is, but assuming it is 20K/year, that equates to at least a half-million dollars (in todays money) by the time you retire at 65, perhaps significantly more if you learn to invest and take advantage of risk in exactly when you can most tolerate it when you are young.
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<p>rogracer, would you kindly let us know how you calculated this?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>^ sure. If you assume your investments can return about 5 or 6% above inflation, that 80K compounds to about a half-million after 40 years in todays dollars. In other words, that 20K/year now equates to an extremely nice house free-and-clear at retirement. Also, the real issue with debt at a young age is that it robs you of investment opportunities exactly when you can invest the most aggressively.</p>
<p>banjo…your posts expounding on GaTech (not even a school brought up by the OP) and some of your other comments about “tiers” sound a lot like the posts by G.P.Burdell…is there a reason for that?</p>
<p>I gave the data that I had available for a very comparable school to UIUC.</p>
<p>As far as your $20,000 / year comment, that assumes that you’ll make the same salary out of UF and UIUC, which is not true. A top school will position you better in the market place and lead to greater opportunities.</p>
<p>I don’t have hard data for ChemE, so I will not speculate about starting salaries regarding the two schools, other than to note that data of this type is notoriously unreliable and must be normalized for factors such as geographic location, and only applies to population groups and not specific samples.</p>
<p>What I can say definitely is that in the aerospace industry (as a proxy) no major companies have different salary structures for Illinois versus Florida. For a given job description and geographic location, the offers are the same. I would be surprised if the hiring policies at the major oil companies, or other top ChemE employers, are any different but I don’t know since I am not a recruiter in that field. Regardless, after initial employment, it will be the OP’s job performance that determines his salary and promotions, and not his undergraduate institution.</p>
<p>So, Banjo, are you in fact G.P. Burdell?</p>
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<p>rogracer, you have added two more assumptions here when comparing UIUC to UF ChE:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>That the OP will be prepared the same at UF as at UIUC, which is one of the best universities in the country for chemical engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>That the OP can successfully reinivest the $80,000 with that type of return.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Onecircuit…I think I address your point 1 pretty clearly in my post #10. Regarding point 2: yes, I am making that assumption… if I give the OP 40 years to turn 80k into a half-million (todays dollars), and he can’t do that, then he will likely have bigger issues in life than deciding what ChemE program to attend. Really, I would hope he could do significantly better than that.</p>
<p>You’re also ignoring inflation. If inflation is 3% per year, you would need a 9% return. That’s not easy to guarantee.</p>
<p>No Banjo, I didn’t “ignore inflation”. And why are you ducking the G.P. Burdell question?</p>
<p>In fact. you did ignore inflation.</p>
<p>As far as your other question, I always ignore attempted ad hominem and always will.</p>
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<p>rogracer, again, you are missing the point…on #1, it could very well be that UIUC trains the OP a lot better in ChE than UF and will lead to making more money in the future, well after the initial first few years…and on #2, you also have to factor out the condition that the OP is a good enough investor such that he turns $80,000 into $500,000 if he went the UF route.</p>
<p>Regarding Point 2), yes, as I have repeatedly stated, I am assuming the OP can generate a real rate-of-return of 5-6%, a figure I believe is easily achievable by an intelligent engineering graduate that takes an active interest in managing his investments. Of course, the OP can plug in whatever expected return he cares to estimate, or just go off and buy a Corvette Z06 and be done with it for all I know. </p>
<p>Regarding Point 1), I understand your comment, but you are comparing an 11th ranked program with a 23rd ranked program (per US News). Either school will give the OP the skill-set he needs to perform to his potential (as will a large number of other schools for that matter). We recruit heavily at UIUC and Florida in aerospace, and I can say conclusively that student variability far, far, far, outweighs any hypothetical differences in school rankings. If there is a particular critical-skill that we target a given school for (and we do), then it most certainly isn’t at the undergraduate level.</p>