I work for a publicly-traded Fortune 1000 tech company in San Diego, and we recruit heavily at UIUC, especially for our large intern program. Having your degree from there won’t be a limiting factor.
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And UIUC offers depth in some areas that CMU cannot match.
They both offer a very large number of CS electives but UIUC is more generous/lenient with AP credits so you’re more likely to have more leeway to take more CS classes at UIUC than at CMU.
Here’s a good summary of CMU vs UIUC from someone who attended both for undergrad (and jibes with what I know of the 2 programs)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/65lk09/reasons_to_attend_uiuc_over_cmu_for_computer/
UIUC has strong relationships with and pipeline in to industry.
CMU more theoretical. UIUC weaker in NLP, ML, robotics and stronger in systems.
CMU is more stressful (some would say toxic) and has some true geniuses. UIUC has a lot of good software engineers and is more collaborative (CMU more competitive). Also, the lower end at UIUC is lower than the lower end at CMU.
Aside:
CMU sounds like (old school) MIT (which makes sense).
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I agree this is a good summary. UIUC is strong in the more traditional areas of CS while CMU is stronger in, some would say, the more “modern” and exciting areas of CS, which require more math (and students stronger in math). And by most accounts, CMU SCS has a more competitive environment than most of its peers.
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sounds right
Regarding post-graduation pay levels, College Scorecard https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ lists the following median pay for graduates who received federal financial aid as students:
$160,116 CMU
$136,499 Stanford
$127,993 MIT
$125,388 UCB
$101,592 UIUC
Probably the big caveat here is that these probably include signing bonuses, since some of the numbers seem to be a lot higher than what the schools’ own career surveys list (although there could be a difference between graduates who received federal financial aid versus those responding to the schools’ own career surveys).
In terms of recruiting, most of the big companies will recruit widely. Small companies may recruit much more sparingly, if they recruit from colleges at all (versus looking for experienced people), and may not travel much or at all (especially if they are near universities that they like to recruit at).
Still, even a really big signing bonus (which may not necessarily be because you attended a specific college) is unlikely to be anywhere close to $200,000.
I know of one right at that amount, but that’s probably influenced by the high col area where the position is. Crazy, I know. 
I’ve been on that website but as you adjust majors, it doesn’t seem to change the salaries. Is that a school # or major at the school #?
Major at the school.
If you go here:
Click on Fields of Study and then See All Fields of Study to go here:
You can then click on each major to see the median post-graduation pay of those who received federal financial aid.
Yeah - I was looking (different majors) the other day and it wasn’t adjusting as I switched majors. I used it too for grad rates.
My daughter is concerned her “favorite” school won’t be perceived as solid by her friends - which is a dumb reason to choose a school. I was trying to show her - the #s are a little lower than others but she’s in Honors and has a special designation within Honors and if it’s right, it’s right (College of Charleston). Anyway, zero to do with this conversation although this one is, I think 100 votes for UIUC and 0 for CMU 
There’re a number of issues with salary surveys (lack of uniform reporting standard, self-reporting bias, etc.) For certain majors (now including CS at some schools), a not-insignificant number of their best students in more quantitative fields/subfields pursue graduate degrees instead of heading directly to industry upon graduation, causing even more distortions in these surveys.
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Like UIUC is ranked no 5 in US news CS and like generally, after berkeley cmu stanford MIT
The cost difference is too high to ignore
Go UIUC
uiuc or cmu both u get good education and it depends on technical skills for job not whether you went to cmu or uiuc
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“I know of one right at that amount, but that’s probably influenced by the high col area where the position is. Crazy, I know”
$200K still seems high for a job right out of undergrad even in say the bay area, but if the median is 130-ish or so, you could have a few there.
bro like its not like in CMU you’re getting something special thats not there in UIUC
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I wasn’t commenting on CMU vs UIUC, more the $200K starting salary.