[intertextuality]

The point is that many state colleges provide ample education. Some provide very good education depending on what areas they specialize in.

USC (South Carolina) is #1 for international business, for example. As I recall we also had good engineering programs. I can't speak for the CS department, but I do know some very smart professors are there, since some of my friends did research there.

USC was the only college I applied to, and I had zero doubts that I'd ever get in (since I didn't go in for IB/business).

Now, networking is a totally different animal. Of course a lot of universities can't match the kind of networking that happens at Ivy leagues. For most people I don't think this is really an issue though as long as you go to a "good"ish university.