<p>Just one anecdotal data point: I have a friend who went to our (very large) state flagship university on full ride + stipend in the Honors program. He got involved in research right away, taught lower level undergrad courses in his departments, applied to and was accepted at every grad program his professors suggested, selected and got his Ph.D. from Harvard, and is now a professor himself at a (different) state flagship.</p>
<p>Not to say that everyone could follow the same path, and I don’t know all the colleges he applied to out of HS, but I’m sure he could not have gone to Harvard undergrad for free + stipend, if he could even have gotten admitted back then. The ug college is just that much harder to get into, his parents would surely have had to pay for it, and he probably wouldn’t have had the same opportunities to explore research.</p>
<p>He observed that the Harvard grad students were generally somewhat less than impressed with the Harvard college undergrads.</p>