The thing is, prestige and cost do not go hand in hand. The most expensive schools are not the most prestigious. I think Vanderbilt was the first school to hit the ignominious milestone of $100,000/yr, and they're not Ivy League, Ivy+, or perhaps even Ivy++ (if such a classification existed).
In general, if a student can get into MIT/Stanford, he will also have been accepted to some less-competitive universities, and likely with decent scholarship. Would it be smarter to go to MIT at full price or Northeastern on a half scholarship?
The fact that people are still signing on the dotted line and paying for these expensive schools is a testament to the value they are perceived to convey. But as the polling shows, America is falling out of love with higher ed. Between this trend and the coming demographic trends, university admissions will get less competitive across the board in coming decades.
Yeah, ok, but this doesn't invalidate what I said above. Completing the degree with MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and such will cost you ~$100k per year (give or take) but they will also open you a door of landing a prestigious job more easily than with the other colleges.
Entry level salaries for most of these folks are ~$200k/yr so having a ~$400k total cost for education, even though I agree it looks totally crazy when given without the context, isn't really _that_ crazy when you put it into a perspective of total expected income.
I think that if this hasn't been even remotely true, there would be no people taking the degrees there, no?