I'm not sure that's true. I have heard far more about the value of "college" in general than about the value of specific colleges. Companies like the University

I'm not sure that's true. I have heard far more about the value of "college" in general than about the value of specific colleges. Companies like the University of Phoenix exist to exploit this assumption. Schools sell education plus connections plus guidance plus a diploma; the diploma is the most tangible thing they sell, so if you just sell the diploma you can cut your costs significantly. YC invests reputation and guidance and connections and money; someone who buys the same stake in exchange for nothing but money is obviously reducing the value--and valuation--of the company they buy into. It's the entrepreneur's decision, and there are some good seed funding programs out there (Techstars has some great portfolio companies). But in many cases, the other programs are using seed companies' generally good reputation (thanks to YC) to make less valuable investments in the same group of companies.