> I don't see that my Berkeley undergrad classmates and I have set the world on fire and we're not powerbrokers by a very long shot

> I am sure things have changed in the nearly 40 years since I graduated

40 years ago maybe, but since the mid-2000s, UCB (and LA and SD) have become much more prestigious (or became more prestigious again - I think Stanford/USC were "inferior" until the 70s-80s due to political strife).

Now that tech (software and hardware) has been the 1st and 3rd highest margin industries for almost 25 years now, there is a lot more money sloshing around.

A plurality of Investment Bankers, PEs, and VCs you'll meet nowadays in the SFBA will have studied at UC Berkeley for either undergrad (usually Eng+Haas or Eng+Econ double major) or via the PT MBA at Haas. Wharton is up there largely thanks to the EMBA program they strategically placed on Embarcadero, and Stanford has never changed prestige wise.

Tech still has a regional bias (Dallas and westward), and most of the West is still public school dominated.

> I don't think wealthy families send their kids to any of these private schools with a view to jobs at LocMart, Boeing, or Argonne.

You're underestimating rich people (or maybe the rich people I know have a tech bias, given that we all work in the tech industry). The "Asian" parent and "Soviet/Israeli Jewish" parent archetype is strong in NorCal - and transplants from other parts of the US act the same way - and most of us 2nd gen members of these communities filtered into the tech industry because our parents worked in them.

Also, new grad salaries in tech outpace salaries in IB, PE, and Consulting when factoring hours worked as well as career longevity, because most IB/PE/Consulting/VC Analysts burn out or get managed out with 3 years, and have to do an MBA in order to pivot into tech. The downside with partner heavy systems is that they limit carry to a handful of mid-to-upper level types who are partner/MD or partner/MD track, and unlike NYC, there just isn't enough deal flow in the West excluding VC to make it easy to job hop in these sectors, and partner-track VC roles at the truly successful VC funds (BVP, Accel, A16Z types) are biased in favor of thematic experience.

On the other hand, if you consistently upskill and show a strong track record of execution, you can remain relevant in the tech industry for decades earning very comfortable salaries.

> The real surprise here is USC which was a scorned backwater when I was in college

Henry Samueli (Broadcom), Andrew Viterbi (Qualcomm), and Aerospace (Northrop, Grumman, BAE) helped massively, as they tended to hire from UCLA, CalTech, and USC due to proximity.

SCU [or USC back in the day ;)] remained an insular parochial Italian Catholic college, though their IP Law program is decent because of the part time JD and some well placed alumni at Fenwick&West, Cooley, Wilson Sonsini, and Google's in-house counsel.

> I mean elite in terms of academic quality vs. job/networking opportunities

40 years ago maybe but not anymore in engineering/CS.

Excluding MIT/CMU/Stanford, most breakthroughs in the last 30-40 years were done by professors at the top CS/EE public universities.

Heck, at Harvard it's fairly common for Eng and CS students to take courses at MIT due to a lack of course offerings at Harvard SEAS.

And anyhow, both MIT and Harvard can't compete with SJSU's MSEE which has actual GMs and Product Leaders at Micron, Intel, Samsung, AMD, Applied Materials, Nvidia, etc teaching part-time

If you don't get a scholarship (which most Californians end up becoming ineligible for due to household income restrictions - a 2 income household where both parents are earning $75k/yr is ineligible for no-strings attached aid at a notable Ivy), the math starts making sense to go to a decent public.