I am suspicious of personal anecdotes from people, for a variety of reasons. As psychologists, we learn about the availability heuristic and confirmation bias: people tend to attend more to data that is easily available to them, and they remember data that confirms what they already believe and forget what doesn’t. So for the above post, we need to consider WHY there are fewer people from regional public colleges than from elite colleges at top PhD programs. A big factor is simple exposure and socioeconomic class: Students who go to Harvard and Amherst are much more likely to want to get a PhD in philosophy - or stumble into academia as a career field - than students who go to UW La Crosse or even Minnesota, because of the kinds of students schools like Harvard and Amherst serve.
And trust me, I’m not trying to say that UW La Crosse would be better than Minnesota or College of the Atlantic. One of the latter two would definitely be better, if you had unlimited resources. But most people don’t have unlimited resources. Most college professors realize that when they are doing admissions.
Also, bravo for you for calling the departments directly. A lot of undergrads don’t do that, but that’s the easiest way to get your questions answered about specific programs.
In my opinion, yes, although it depends on your family’s finances.
It sounds like you and your parents would only have to pay around $14-18K total for you to attend Minnesota or College of the Atlantic (assuming that you have two years left); you can help finance that with federal loans and other sources (e.g. Pell Grant, if you are eligible). In return, you will get a much better atmosphere for someone who is striving for a PhD and an academic career. Again, it’s not that you CAN’T go to a good school from a regional WI college; you can. But at Minnesota or CoA, there will be a larger community of students who have like-minded goals; your classmates will be more accomplished students; there will be more research going on around you to get involved; the professors will be higher quality, come from the kinds of programs that you want to go to, and have more connections. Those are things that can benefit you even if you change your mind and don’t get a PhD in philosophy.
But I don’t know how much of a hardship it would be on your family to come out of pocket for that, so you’d have to discuss it with your folks.