[ganashaw]

For me, the value in attending a "top" university is much more about the networking and "name recognition" on resumes, and the enormous boost that those factors offer you over the course of one's career, than it is about the actual coursework. Unfortunately (imo) if a recruiter is given two identical resumes but ones says MIT and one says State School, the MIT resume will almost always get preference for interviews, salary negotion, etc.

I went into massive debt attending CMU, when I could have probably gone to a perfectly good university for free, but I've seen first hand (and been told by recruiters) how much just having THAT university on my resume has affected my prospects, and so I still think it was worth it. That's not to mention the other experiences afforded by attending a world class university like research opportunities, internships, etc. which all sort of serve as a positive feedback loop for improving the prestige of the university and it's alumni.

[908B64B197]

I'd say it's mostly a signal to noise ratio issue.

Google famously said they didn't really observe correlation between alma mater and performance BUT it only applied to folks they actually hired.