This is an excellent point. The selective private schools account for a tiny number of students (e.g. MIT takes in about 1K undergrads a year). And in my expe

This is an excellent point. The selective private schools account for a tiny number of students (e.g. MIT takes in about 1K undergrads a year). And in my experience of both having attended such a school and having hired tons of people from all sorts of backgrounds over almost four decades, while some really do benefit from that fancy schooling, most end up with an OK education. Meanwhile the ones who did community college->state school have all been great hires, and you can get a super education at a lot of state schools.