For both academic and career purpose, Texas fairly win as UIUC MLA program is flopping. The lacking of teaching resources, the bureaucracy has penetrated into department's sociality, and the total crappy theoretical fantasy from the major professor only prepares you for nihilism. Besides, limited funding leans the admission appetizer toward to a bunch of international students -- mainly from China -- since they are willing for paying the whole tuition. And the career assistance from the department is perfectly terrible. Only few students find the jobs or intern that catch up with their living cost. Most of your classmates -- 15/17 come from China and they probably will come back to China since their homeland is rampantly developing, you would gain a poor network imaging that you spent two years with them and they most likely gone overseas from the rest of your life. I would not recommend anyone like to stay in the U.S. to attend this program. But the most importantly, lacking of bright brains would erode your ambitions in benefiting from higher education that you are expecting but significantly void from this department. 

how about    UIUC vs TAMU for MLA?

wait, what happened with UPenn?