The point is that many state colleges provide ample education. Some provide very good education depending on what areas they specialize in.

USC (South Carolina) is #1 for international business, for example. As I recall we also had good engineering programs. I can't speak for the CS department, but I do know some very smart professors are there, since some of my friends did research there.

USC was the only college I applied to, and I had zero doubts that I'd ever get in (since I didn't go in for IB/business).

Now, networking is a totally different animal. Of course a lot of universities can't match the kind of networking that happens at Ivy leagues. For most people I don't think this is really an issue though as long as you go to a "good"ish university.

I listed just a few strong non-Ivies off the top of my head. A list of other strong, non-“elite” CS schools might include the likes of GMU, WPI, RPI, RIT, or UMBC. I have friends and co-workers from each of these schools who are all fine engineers. Conversely, I’ve worked with Ivy Leaguers who couldn’t code their way out of a wet paper bag.

Also, schools with higher acceptance rates do not necessarily offer lower-quality educations, or have lower standards for graduation. One metric to consider is the four- or five-year graduation rate. For financial reasons, second-tier schools may initially admit more freshmen but ultimately wash more of them out. While this can turn out poorly for the student who takes out student loans only to wash out sophomore year, it can be a boon to strong students who, for one reason or another, didn’t have a standout high school experience.