Companies like Google and Facebook that used to demand elite academic requirements for NCGs fell into the same phony meritocracy trap as law and finance firms. That approach is being reconsidered, even if it’s still in use. Besides, they and other coastal elites only represent a small fraction of hiring. And after a couple years of experience any place worth working at is going to ask more about your github repos than where you went to college. You may not make $200k a year and get to live in San Francisco, but you will be hired.
There have been several studies that use a “value add” methodology to show that “academic eliteness” doesn’t mean that much. Foothill College, University of the Pacific anyone? Example: https://www.brookings.edu/research/using-earnings-data-to-rank-colleges-a-value-added-approach-updated-with-college-scorecard-data/
