The "dream" is to immerse in learning while being surrounded by a critical mass of intelligent, driven, and most importantly well-connected people. There's a reason a large majority of the top entrepreneurs seem to have come from the same set of schools.

Sam Altman - Stanford Paul Graham - Harvard, Cornell Jeff Bezos - Princeton Larry Page - Stanford Peter Thiel, who despite his current ideological stance, also went to Stanford

We all know about the exceptions, sure - but they are exceptions. Most of the top ones (Google your favorite entrepreneurs aside from the well known ones like Zuck, Jobs, and Gates) - most of them have prestigious backgrounds, and those without do much worse:

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Entrepreneurs-do-be...

Now, I've read Graham's (http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html) essay about this, which is interesting for the subset of people who happen to apply to YC, but it doesn't touch on the main point: that a top-tier institution where you can be completely immersed, be surrounded by incredible people you can network with, and not think about paying rent gives you astronomical advantages. I don't think there's really any credible debate around this particular point. You can't do that while you're working; immersion happens only when you can truly focus. If you're thinking about rent, food, bills, etc. you're not focusing. You're also not going to get the kind of network at a state school - you might get lucky, but for spending 4-6 years of your life, that's a huge gamble on top of the money you're spending. I've tried to work while going to school once, and it ended in disaster (it can wreck your physical health, mental health, and knowledge retention. It's awful, and those of you you have done it, I applaud you, but not everyone has what it takes to do that.)

To your third point: that's the excuse we use to tell everyone they should suck it up and be happy with what they have, and it's awful. You go down that ladder, and you're telling people who "only" get beat up once a week that they should be happy not getting shot. The benchmark we should be using is the world we'd like to create, not "at least you can eat." Come on.

That all said, I appreciate your comment even I disagree with you. I know you don't have answers, nor does anyone else here (but if someone does, of course I'd love to hear about it!) I certainly don't expect that. I know the state of things. I came here to vent and commiserate. I'm angry, and I'm envious. That's all.