Full disclaimer - I graduated from college in my home country and started my career there before moving to the US. It was also a long…long time ago.
Having said that, I’m still working and (occasionally) on the job market, and my observation is that if you’re fresh graduate and you’re applying for jobs through job boards, you’re toast. The point of getting into respected university is to get involved in actual research projects as early as possible, work with professionals whose day job/other job is actually doing what you’re studying to be doing, connecting with companies through research and (eventually) internships, which should give you a leg up when you graduate (or maybe even a job offer before you do). These are companies that operate in the same region you’re studying. UAH has a connection with NASA because there’s a NASA research center right freaking there and students can take part in the projects, and have have NASA engineers come in and help with research and other stuff. Ditto for some Florida universities (UCF perhaps?), right AT the Space Coast. Or Washington State University (Boeing). Or Arizona State (plenty of space companies there). Or Texas.
Alabama has a number of automotive manufacturing facilities (Mercedes, Hyundai, Honda), a lot of which are assembly plants but there should be some engineering there as well. They must be coming to UA for their future staff needs.
UIUC has a clout so companies do hire out of it, even though it’s in between the cornfields. Other schools, that are not as known, might not be as lucky if there’s not that many companies around.
That’s what I meant when I said that location kinda matters.