HRE wrote:
All of my degrees have come at state schools but I am familiar with the idea that a degree from an Ivy school and the connections you'll make will set you up for a life at the top and the fabulous wealth that comes with that life. But of the people I know with degrees from Ivy schools the vast majority have been school teachers or principals, one had a few civil service jobs before quitting to be a full time parent, one became a priest, i.e. none of them are doing anything that people who graduated from Shippensburg with me aren't doing. And Shippensburg has produced a few corporate presidents and the like as have most other schools.
So yeah, you've got your presidents and cabinet members coming from Yale but the odds are that if you have the Ivy degree you'll end up with a job that you could have gotten had you gone to U. Mass or Butler or pretty much any other accredited school. Were I in your place I would start with that assumption and ask myself if I want to take on that sort of debt for the experience of an Ivy education.
QFE -- This is the answer. I went to an Ivy undergrad, state school for law school. Now I am a lawyer. The Ivy degree opened some doors at first, but in the end, it is all about how hard and well you work. Most people in my position (self-employed lawyer) did not go to Ivy.