Does UIUC worth 40k+living expenses?

[ev a.]

Masters, not PhD.

I am an international student. I've been admitted to some places, including EPFL with scholarships, ETH Zurich, UIUC. I hope to work at Silicon valley, hence USA is very appealing, but Illinois @   Urbana-Champaign did not grant me any scholarship. 

I am afraid that securing a job from Europe would be harder, as some of my friends are struggling right now with that very same issue.

Illinois said that it was possible (but not a guarantee) for me to work as a TA to cover some of the expenses.

I would be declining excellence scholarship from another school if I go to UIUC. I am not much concerned about the educational quality, all seem fine to me.

Is going to UIUC a good investment for future job prospects? (Still waiting to hear from UT Austin btw)

[svent]

It's in the middle of nowhere, but it's a very good school and you'd have excellent recruiting opportunities even from CA companies. Perhaps not as strong as Berkeley or even UCLA, but still top notch. The advantages are that you'd have cheap living costs and might have better access to recruiters from other markets, such as Chicago. If you get into UT, I'd probably go there though. Also cheap living, also good recruiters from CA companies, but access to TX companies as well. TX is probably the 2nd best state for tech jobs in the US, and probably has the best overall economy of any state in the US. It's also pretty central in the US and you might even get some recruiters from places like Atlanta or Denver, not sure though.

I know you're just there to Americanize yourself, but you may want to consider what schools have better coursework/research that would match your interests.

[toxicdevil]

If I had the money I would go to UIUC.

Plus there is a chance of getting a TA or RA position later.

[rising_star]

Honestly, I wouldn't take on that much debt to go to UIUC. 

[ev a.]

4 hours ago, rising_star said:

Honestly, I wouldn't take on that much debt to go to UIUC. 

Thanks, care to elaborate?

[rising_star]

Well, UIUC isn't generally thought of as a place to go if your goal is to end up in Silicon Valley. I don't know that it would be that much more beneficial than going to a place where you're funded and doing good internships.

[svent]

It's true that places like Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD are best for going to Silicon Valley, but some highly ranked schools far away also have fantastic recruiting opportunities (places like UIUC, CMU, GaTech, UT Austin, Michigan, etc.).

If you believe there's a chance you might prefer some other market to Norcal, consider that. UIUC would give you access to Chicago, UT Austin would give you access to Austin+Dallas+Houston, Michigan would give you access to uh... Chicago and Columbus? GaTech would give you access to Atlanta, etc.

Edited March 19, 2016 by svent

[ev a.]

@rising_star and @svent, thank you both for your responses. As a last question, do you believe that it would be tough for a person with only an MSc degree to get jobs at good companies? Obviously good is very relative, I generally mean companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, or start-ups on the rise, basically enough for me to make a decent living as an engineer.