I guess the point I was trying to get at is the flagship public research university in your state doesn't count, URI isn't even cheap compared to other flagship

I guess the point I was trying to get at is the flagship public research university in your state doesn't count, URI isn't even cheap compared to other flagship public universities. I went to the flagship public school in my state, I don't consider it cheap. I'm thinking more like lake superior college in MI, or UW-Stout in Wisconsin. They're cheaper than the flagship public school, but because of their lack of name recognition and assumptions employers make (like did this person go to superior because it was cheap, or because that's the only place they got in?), I've seen people struggle to get good jobs after attending, particularly during rough economies. As a test, look in your IT department. I wouldn't be surprised if it's full of people from community colleges and lower ranked "cheap" colleges with engineering degrees. I like the idea of just going to the cheapest school but ranking unfortunately matters to a lot of employers, and ranking is usually correlated with cost.