CS Master's Degrees - US vs. EU Programs?

Monty asks: "I'm currently exploring my options and I've been wondering, is it worthwhile to seek education overseas--specifically the EU? Edsgar Dijkstra was of the opinion, though controversial, that American and European CS programs were fundamentally different (see his later writings in the E.W. Dijkstra Archives). What makes the EU interesting, in that light, is that it seems to have more openly embraced things like functional programming. So, if I want to focus my study on something of a more functional nature, are schools in the EU a better choice? What are the implications of returning to North America for employment with a foreign degree? Do they have to be accredited as proof of validity or are they usually recognized by themselves here in the US?"

Comments

Qualifications Assessor POV

[sbszine]

I assess international qualifications for an Australian university, and we consider US qualifications to be about a year behind Aussie and western European quals (UK etc). The US education system is about on par with Hungary and Pakistan in the view of our assessors, but we consider UK and many Indian quals to be on par with our own.

The main factor in deciding the quality of a particular country's qualifications is not the curriculum, facilities, or anything along those lines. It's the quality of the students, determined mostly by whether students gain their place at university through academic merit, or by buying a place. In the US you mostly buy a place, so consequently the value of degrees from the US suffers.

I would advise anyone trying to choose between the US and Europe for a degree of any kind to go to an English university. They don't hand out testamurs from Oxford to any sub-literate with a fat wallet.