Mechanical Engineer admitted to UCLA MFE

[RandomMember]

I have recently been admitted to the MFE program at UCLA with a 10K scholarship. I believe the program is great and has a good reputation, the cost of attendance, and job placement after graduation worries me a bit though.

I am a Canadian and I am currently working as a mechanical engineer in Canada and have a stable job with a high-tech firm. Since I got admitted, I started looking into financing the CAD 140k price tag for getting the degree (this includes cost of living and tuition, exchange rate is taken into account). I am probably going to have to borrow CAD70K to pay for the costs. I have a few questions that I'd like to ask people with more experience in this field :

1. UCLA does not release internship employment/salary rates, any insight into how much interns get paid, what percentage of students get internships?

2. I currently make CAD 80k in engineering, expecting it to grow slowly (3%) over the next 5 years, and cost of living in my city is far cheaper than the cost of living in big cities like NY, SanFran, or LA. Is a career in quantitative finance going to be better financially in the long run than my current engineering career?

3. How hard would it be for me to work in a US firm after MFE as a Canadian?

4. Has anyone had experience coming back to work in Canada with an MFE degree from US?


Thanks for taking the time to read and reply to this!

Cheers.

 

[IntoDarkness]

cost of living in la is dirt cheap compared with sf or nyc. but that 140k price tag seems too high and borderline ridiculous.