University of Illinois Urbana Champaign - Master of Financial Engineering

University of Illinois Urbana Champaign - Master of Financial Engineering

Illinois MSFE is a full-time program

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Location
Urbana, IL 61801
Application deadline
April 15, 2025
History
In the of Fall 2010, the College of Business and the College of Engineering at The University of Illinois introduced a new Master program Master of Science in Financial Engineering (MSFE). The program was initiated by Dr. Charles Kahn, Professor of Finance and Fred S. Bailey Memorial Chair of Finance and Dr. Jong-Shi Pang, Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering.

Academics
Academics at the University of Illinois are renowned. ILLINOIS was ranked #4 in terms of return on investment; ahead of all Ivy League, private, and other Big Ten universities. Our College of Engineering is No. 4 worldwide in the "Academic Ranking of World Universities in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences" and is consistently among the top-ranked schools nationally in U.S. News and World Report.

The Illinois Master of Science in Financial Engineering degree is both technical and pragmatic. Students receive training in the most advanced techniques, providing them the grounding and tools to advance quickly in the field. The program features practice-based learning opportunities which assure the curriculum is always demanding and contemporary. Further, the featured Practicum in the third semester of the program serves as a bridge with industry focusing on real world financial modeling problems.

We teach the skills needed for quantitative analysis of financial instruments and markets. Our graduates are able to take these tools to corporations, financial institutions, and regulatory bodies, to use these markets to manage risk effectively today—and to develop the techniques and institutions to manage the new risk challenges of tomorrow.

Curriculum
The University of Illinois MSFE degree is a three-semester program (fall, spring, summer internship, fall) offered by the Departments of Finance and Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering at the Urbana-Champaign campus. The curriculum is drawn from topics in stochastic modeling optimization, computing and computational methods, finance, and an applied practicum experience, and is taught by internationally recognized engineering and finance faculty. The program provides an opportunity to study with an international peer group at one of the premier research universities in the world.

Our curriculum can be found at Academics

Our curriculum offers student the ability to customize their program toward their desired areas of interest by offering flexibility in electives for the second and third semesters of the program and also with the options of concentrations within the program. More information about the concentrations can be found at Concentrations : Illinois MSFE (STEM): University of Illinois

Our students also receive real world experience through experiential learning in the required program practicum. The students have access to real companies and real projects during the practicum while also connnecting our students to the financial markets in Chicago, New York and beyond.

*Curriculum subject to change without prior notice.
**Additionally the MSFE Program will be allowing for a "Two Year Option". This will allow for students to conduct their study over two years - four full semesters. This will allow for more flexibility in electives. This option can only be exercised after the completion and evaluation of the first semester and with department approval. Fees are scaled accordingly.

Practitioner Speaker Series
Several times throughout the year, the MSFE Program will host guest speakers from the industry. A list of those practitioners and their presentation topics can be found here.

MSFE Administration
Liming Feng – Director
Amy Lamb - Program Coordinator
Matthew Murphy - Fin Tech


Housing
You will find that housing in the Urbana-Champaign community is inexpensive compared to larger metropolitan areas. In fact, the cost of living in Urbana-Champaign is anywhere from ¼ to ½ the cost of living in places such as Boston, London, New York or Southern California. Compare costs of living for yourself.

Contact Information
General Inquiries
msfe@illinois.edu
217-333-3284

Application/Admissions Inquiries
msfe-apply@illinois.edu
217-333-3284

Mailing Information
MSFE
University of Illinois
3251 Digital Computer Lab, MC 273
1304 W Springfield Ave
Urbana, IL 61801
2025 Ranking Data
Cohort Size
49 FT
Tuition
$78,969

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36,599
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Ratings

4.51 star(s) 39 reviews 4.00 star(s) Students Quality 5.00 star(s) Courses/Instructors 5.00 star(s) Career Services
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Latest reviews
Headline
Director has been changed
Class of
2022
The MSFE program is now led by professor Feng, who is the best director I have ever seen. I think most issues previously mentioned no longer seem to be a concern. While many enrolled students may not initially appear exceptional enough to secure top market positions, the program still provides equal/more opportunities to enter prestigious banks and hedge funds.

In the second semester, there is a practicum project where HR and R&D departments from top banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Goldman Sachs,etc.. give projects to students and guide them to achieve specific industry targets.(In our class there is 6 projects given by differnt companies) Four students from our class were hired directly by HRs from top companies immediately after completing the project. Please note that the job position was difficult to find than normal because of covid19, but they still did it. Such opportunities are very very rare in other colleges in my understanding.

For those bad reviewers: Before you criticize this program for not being good enough or having poor job placement rates, ask yourself why you weren't admitted to NYU, Baruch College, or any other "good" MSFE project. Is it because you didn't want to go? No, it's because you weren't good enough. Reflect on your own shortcomings. If you believe your abilities are on par with students from those top schools, this program offers you ample opportunities, or even more additional opportunities, to achieve your quantitative finance goal in your career plan.

I would rate the quality of students as 3 or 4 stars because you will have roughly 5-6 very good colleagues, but there are some poor students, like most ones who provided the negative review. I don't think that's an issue, at least for me 3-4 friend with excellent ability is sufficient for me. You are the master to decide where your future should go.
Recommend
Yes, I would recommend this program
Students Quality
4.00 star(s)
Courses/Instructors
5.00 star(s)
Career Services
5.00 star(s)
Upvote 2 Downvote
MSFE in UIUC has great course arrangement and the course has great improvement of my skills in quant, data analyst, risk modeling those field. Besides, the program has practicum which means intern opportunity provided by the program to work in practice situation and that opportunity may give return offer when you act perfectly impressed the company staff.
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X
I’m a current student in MSFE, and I will graduate in December 2020. From my experience in UIUC, I believe the program provides a great opportunity for students who are seeking to make contributions in financial engineering industry but don’t have comprehensive knowledge on finance or computer science background. The curriculum setting is very helpful that includes various topics that follow the popular trend in financial industry. Such as risk management, derivative pricing, machine learning, and more relevant topics that many companies in financial industry focus on. MSFE provides essential knowledge in financial engineering, and the flexibility for students to explore their interests of specific area in financial engineering. Except the require classes are set in first two classes, you can also choose the class you like in third semester. After enrolled in this program, I certainly have improvement on my academic path!
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Because of this program I am the oldest unemployed person of all time. I had doubts about the program since the beginning when they took us to woods for team building. One of the task includes balancing yourself, I offered my hand to one my female peers (duh, asian) and she refused. I have been traumatized since then and have not spoken to any female.
Once, I asked a professor my question and he replied me with "you tell me". One of my peers have lot of guns so now I am afraid to go to class.
Our program director is wise and old and was the angel investor in apple, "the fruit."
The only good thing about the program is the girls become hotter after 2 semesters.
P.S.: Zenith is a a**hol*
Upvote -2 Downvote
Gao Yufei
I am an alumni graduated at December 2018, and after 2 months then I landed a job in Chicago. The general employment rate is good for our class. Most of our classmates received offers from January to March. Quite a lot concentrated in quantitative finance related positions, others include like sales and trade, data science and analytic roles etc. U of I is quite competitive in great chicago area, where many big-name finance companies located at. In recent years, we witnessed some continuous progress and changes in this MSFE program, e.g. some courses are more focusing on industry related topics, other than just theory and formula based courses. Honestly, there are still long way to go for this program to be a top level one. But my recommendation is, if you can get admission or offer from a MFE program in CMU, MIT and Princeton or other programs at this level, definitely go to these programs. If you choose U of I, don't get frustrated, you still have a great chance to land a good job!
Upvote 0 Downvote
I looked at other FE program's reviews too but didn't find a program that has reviews like here. The reviews are attacking each other and some are highly subjective. A bit of everything makes the curriculum sound very balanced but it basically means nothing for a second thought. We all know that we need some concentration instead of brief knowledge of everything. Yes please give HONEST and FAIR feedback. And don't get it too emotional. A bad review doesn't mean a lack of honesty and fairness. Instead bad reviews let people think, adjust and make the program better. When I was comparing different Quantitative finance programs, I also looked at the data that got published. At lease the employment rates of recent graduates revealed that this program has a long way to go.
Upvote 0 Downvote
I graduated in 2015 and currently work in Chicago. Here's my two cents on the program:
Strength:
- Well rounded curriculum
Having graduated and met with other people of similar programs, I feel our program offers a very well-balanced academic curriculum: a bit of statistics, a bit of programming, and a bit of finance, all in the first semester. I've read reviews where people think the finance courses are useless, but in my experience, those courses gave me good small talk material during interviews to show my interest in the field.
- U of I has strong pull on employers
This is different from our program's career services, more on that later. Most people come to a Masters program with one thing in mind: a better job. In this sense, U of I has plenty of resources available for that: in my day, there were 3 career fairs a semester, with more than 200 companies coming to each of them. Having been on the hiring side going to other schools in my recent years, I can tell you UofI's pull is as strong as any of them.
Weakness:
-Career Services
So it was surprising to me when the students are not exactly taking advantage of the career opportunities provided. I think it could have been a combination of the student demographic and negligence of the program on career counselling; but when school started I was one of the few people that went to career fairs in September. Given that most companies finish intern hiring in the fall nowadays, when spring comes many of my peers were scrambling to find an internship.
-Location
Situated in Champagne makes it difficult network with alum and professionals. The programs does try to remedy this with a colloquium set in Chicago, but I don't think it's enough. With that being said, the curriculum did give you enough time to network on your own though: I flew myself to New York to meet with people, and met up with alum in Chicago for coffee chats when I could. Like all things in life, you just have to make the right trade offs: getting important industry knowledge outweighed missing one assignment mark.

Final thoughts:
For the initiated student, UofI has a lot of opportunities to offer; but none of them will be spoon-fed to you. I think the program can strengthen itself in terms of alumni connections, and educating students on the job market during orientation. I don't think having a lot of international students is a problem (I was one), but their expectations needs to be adjusted.
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E
I can't believe there's a review calling this program a fraud. Hey, I don't know what universe you are from, but in this one, it's a fabulous Master's program, where you can learn much more than what's enough to get you a decent job in quantitative finance. And Dr. Lane is always doing his best to make great use of our tuition, providing networking opportunities, elective classes and even hotel accommodations in Chicago.

Sorry if I got a bit too emotional here, but my point is, MSFE at UIUC is a great program where you have a well selected list of courses covering a wide range of knowledge in quantitative finance, such as statistics, derivatives, risk management, etc. The academic training is also paired with professional projects from industry partners. Most professors are extremely good at teaching and even world-famous. To be honest, I did encounter one professor not so dedicated in the course, but the problem got well-addressed by the program. In that case, giving HONEST and FAIR feedback is important, and naturally it takes time for the program to address the problem, and that doesn't mean the director does't take it seriously.

Also it's not true that we only have 1 elective. in the third semester you choose all your 4 courses from a list of finance and engineering courses...including courses from UIUC's well-respected CS department.
A bit more flexibility in the first 2 semesters sounds good, but honestly in the first 2 semesters, the required courses are all fundamental ones in quantitative finance, and you really need to take them if you want to understand what your colleagues are talking about later in the work place.

Overall, great program with dedicated crew, decent professors, and a lot to offer for the tuition. It's also a great place to make some lifelong friends.
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  • Anonymous
  • 4.00 star(s)
Many courses are designed only for MSFE students, and cover wide range of topics, such as risk, derivatives, programming. Practicum can also help gain much precious experience from industry.
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  • Anonymous
  • 4.00 star(s)
The overall program is fine. However, I would have to agree with the review below about elective courses. According to my best knowledge, a lot of MFE programs nowadays offer different tracks for students with different interest in the industry. UIUC is a decent school (especially when we are talking about computer science) with many great courses offered, making it quite a shame that MSFE students could not customize their own tracks and take courses in their own interest in the first two semesters. I believe it would be really beneficial if future batches of students can get more electives.
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