Sorry about this. I started writing and got carried away =/ It's a bit long! After reading your reply, I have some answers to your questions and some more specific information that you might be of interrest:

Room and Board - They don't have on-campus room and board like your traditional schools, however, they have special deals with nearby apartment complexes. Basically you live with 2 or 3 other students, which has it's benefits. You wouldn't be living in high-style, but it's not a bad setup. DeVry will actually help set you up with this and I believe they help manage the financing of this if needed.

Other Assistance - DeVry is extreamly good about helping you enroll and get everything setup to live here. They will go out of their way to find you room and board that is acceptable, work out financing, and anything in between.

Job Placement - As was mentioned, they do have EXCELLENT job placement during and after graduation. They have really good programs for helping you get a job doing whatever you want while your going to school. While I attended, I worked as a test engineer and later did some embedded work. When I graduated, the company offered me a full time position at 60-80k, which is better than most EE starting salaries in the US. I think they have something like a 99% placement record...if you graduate and you want to work in the EE field, they will place you. If you can't get a job, then your not trying.

Credit Transfer - I don't know if it's possible, but you might be able to transfer somemost of your education credits so that you don't need to re-take some of the more general courses. DeVry is bad about transfering credits...they are a business and want you to pay $$$. But when I attended, I recall that if you pressed the issue, generally you could get credits transfered. This might be a good way to shorten the school time and avoid re-taking some classes.

Job Possibilities - Craig mentioned Texas Instruments, but thats only scratching the surface of whats around here in the Dallas area. Basically, we have been taken over by Telecom companies (all of which hire embedded programmers). Almost every single major telecom company is here. Lokheed Martin and Raytheon if your into military embedded. There is a few big medical device companies. Not to mention everything inbetween. IMO, DallasAustin is the second largest hotbed of embedded development in the US (second to CA). Anyway, there are hundreds of big name companies if thats your thing. Tons of small companies as well.

8051 Curriculum - Devry (speaking of all campuses) in general may or may not specifically offer 8051. I think Jon mentioned below that the Kansas City branch did Zilog. But DO understand that Devry's 8051 coverage is a small fraction of the classes you would take. To put it in perspective, you might have 2 courses out of 100 that covered 8051. You might have 6 out of 100 that would cover assemblyC. And some other semi-related material like DSP, PC architecture, etc.

With all this in mind, a couple feelings come to mind:

1) You sound like you have a good background of general electronicsmathetc. If you are only looking for 8051 study, I don't believe there is a single school that offers a direct approach at 8051 or embedded as a whole. All seem to cover the broad spectrum of electronics as well as some general studies (economics, calculus, etc).

2) I realize that school is a way to get around imigration rules and whatnot, but as far as education goes, my personal oppinion is that a dedicated person that has good electronics background who knows a little about 8051embedded can get a better "8051 education" by attending embedded workshops, reading materialbooks, getting real world experience. Just FYI.

3) Assuming you don't mind taking Calculus, DC, AC, etc all over again, DeVry sounds like a pretty good solution for what your looking for. And I would deffinatly recommend Dallas not only because of the 8051 coverage, but because the jobcompany situation here is really good.

4) Regardless, the scheduling coupled with your determination will allow you to know everything about the 8051 that you would want to know. Three years is a long time to "tailor" your own education by studing additional topics that interrest you.

Tomas