Congrats to UCF’s teams. :-bd
ABET is irrelevant for CS. The list of schools that don’t have ABET CS programs go from MIT, CMU to UW-Madision, UC-SD and UF.
I can’t find any rankings that have UCF higher than UF for CS (let alone engineering). Most have UF ranked much higher (for whatever that’s worth).
What are you basing your salary info on? Using PayScale, UF’s Median Salary is “Software Engineers” is $77,398, UCF is $69,019. Lots of issues with using Payscale, but there isn’t many other options. How would a school know what’s it’s graduates are earning? You have to get the info from the IRS, which has been working on it, and as typical for the feds, not making any progress. That leaves us with self-reported survey info, like Payscale.
Using LinkedIn, I can tell that UF Alumni, working in IT and Engineering are far more likely to be working out of state (in places like Atlanta, New York, Boston, Seattle and especially San Francisco) than their UCF counterparts. In fact, about 1/2 of UCF IT and Engineering alumni’s live and work in Orlando.
UF starts with a much stronger group of students. The average UCF student’s SAT/ACT/GPA is around the 25% percentile at UF. That’s one reason UF and many other schools don’t seen to have a need for a “tough” foundation exam. Unless you have some evidence that the average UCF CS student is smarter? To be honest, when I read about the exam, I thought it indicated that UCF’s prerequisites (Calc, Physics, etc.) may not be that rigorous.
Clearly UF has more resources for it’s CISE program.
I’m open to the idea that UCF may have a better program. But you’ll have to make it based on the strength of UCF’s teaching faculty. Both schools have about the same number of tenured professors (UF 32, UCF 30), while UCF also has an additional 20 (13 full time/7 part time) non-tenured track instructors (UF only has 2). This teaching faculty supports 595 Juniors/Seniors (3rd, 4th and 5th year students) at UCF, while UF’s program only has 223 Juniors/Seniors (this is all based on 2013 data). Having almost 3X the number of students, is the reason why UCF has so many non-tenured track instructors.
If UCF has a stronger program, it’s due to the teaching faculty, not an advantage in resources or “smarter” CS students.