[hueving]

>A university without well-respected and celebrated faculty is similarly "worthless".

Not even close. As an undergrad you are getting ripped off if you choose a research university. As a student the product you are getting is an education, which has little to do with research quality.

Targeted ads depend entirely on accurate user data, so the analogy is a bit brain dead.

>There's a reason that college admissions brochures love to tout the number of Nobel prizes

Yes, to attract chumps. Anyone who does the minimum amount of research or thinking will quickly discover that nobel prize winners are approximately useless to undergraduate educations. Nobel prizes are the gold plating to the hdmi cables of education.

[morgante]

Your argument has devolved to insults. Goodbye.

Calling consumers "chumps" doesn't change the fact of their choices.