[tombert]

I have to ask how much of this comes down to "reputation" more than quality of education. I'm a dropout who largely thinks college is overrated, and even I will be impressed by "MIT" or "Harvard" on a resume.

I have given a lot of interviews at this point, and while I personally cannot speak for everyone (nor does my word override a statistic), but I haven't noticed a huge difference in the quality of applicants between a normal state college, and a brand-name college. Granted, I interview for the "9-5 corporate desk-jockey" jobs, so maybe I'm not getting the next Von Neumann applying.

That said, I have worked for New York University (which I believe is considered a pretty-good school, and is certainly expensive), and I got to see the whole cross section of professors from basically every brand of university. My conclusion? Largely inconclusive: it largely made no difference where the people went to school (though admittedly the dropouts (including me) were typically not as bright).