If you are looking at college as an investment, here is some interesting data: http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/ http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/ Moreov

If you are looking at college as an investment, here is some interesting data: http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/ http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/ Moreover, it's very difficult to be admitted into an Ivy League school. It is also very difficult to recruit graduates from Ivy League Schools. They are rare: In 2014-15, 1.8 million bachelors degrees were awarded in the US [1]. Roughly 20,000 of those are from Ivy League schools. That's about 1%. Hence, even sought after employers like Apple employ more students from mid-tier schools like San Jose State than top-ranked schools [2]. So if you are an Apple recruiter, the bulk of your recruits come from a University that is ranked 38 out of about 130 -regional- schools. It is not even ranked nationally. The notion that if an applicant is not admitted to a top-ranked school, they are going to wind up a janitor, is simply false. What has become skewed is the perception of the value of elite schools. Since perception drives price, the price of attending them has skyrocketed. The 4-year cost of Harvard is now $234,000 [3] vs. San Jose State at about $100,000 [4]. And schools like Missouri University of Science and Technology present the better ROI. [1] http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372 [2] http://www.wired.com/2014/05/alumni-network-2/ http://www.wired.com/2014/05/alumni-network-2/ [3] http://www.harvard.edu/harvard-glance http://www.harvard.edu/harvard-glance [4] http://www.sjsu.edu/faso/Applying/Cost_of_Attendance/ http://www.sjsu.edu/faso/Applying/Cost_of_Attendance/