@DadTwoGirls while I don’t necessarily disagree with your post, the idea of “choice” is problematic to me. Almost all of the UCs are in expensive areas. If those schools stop attracting top students to their graduate programs - and that’s in essence what you’re suggesting by making choices - what do you think will happen to their rankings? And how long do you think they will remain the powerhouses that they are today - powerhouses that attract top professors, the most in funding, the best graduate students?
And let’s not forget what these top universities do for the communities in which they find themselves in: they bring in huge amounts of growth and money. There’s a reason why Silicon Valley is where it is and the Miracle Mile is where it is - and that reason is that they grew out of proximity to the world’s great universities that feed ideas, talent and skills.