@rstdane1 - I’ve had this exact same conversation with engineering profs at UMN. If you attend 'Bama for, say, chemical engineering, will you have the career and grad school opportunities as someone who attends UMN/UW/UIUC/UMich/Purdue/OSU and so on. This was also discussed on the UMN cc thread a couple years ago - very interesting conversation and done in conjunction with the announcement of the first set of tuition hikes (9% at the time - steep, but not nearly as steep as the one proposed 
). At the time, an academic engineer weighed in on the conversation and said that there was just no comparison - the kids at the really good state engineering schools would have an overall advantage. However, I think someone else pointed out that starting salaries were pretty much equivalent (chem. Eng. is in high demand currently - or was a couple years ago). So . . . it depends. As someone trained in economics, I’m very much aware of the signalling value of a particular, selective program. But it’s also possible to build reputation by throwing a ton of money at the university (UT did just that once upon a time and has been considered an excellent research uni. for awhile now). So the dynamics and players can certainly change - it’s probably not a quick process (as reputation capital is very hard to build up and a uni. can coast on an outdated reputation for years before starting to feel any negative effects).