You have UC Berkeley, Michigan, Texas, and Virginia, which seem almost—if not actually—like elite schools. All in different regions with different state politics. You can go there and compete against Ivy students for jobs.
And then you have, say, University of Nevada (no offense) or University of Tennessee or something, where you still have highly motivated students, but the institutional reputation seems much lower.
What gives?
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There actually aren’t “extreme differences in quality” between flagship schools. For the most part you are going to get a good education at any of them, depending on the degree one of those ivy league schools might not be your best option.
What there is an extreme difference in fame and reputation.
Just like how billions of people know who Usain Bolt is but almost nobody knows the names of the other 100+ people that are 99-96% as fast as he is.
At the end of the day we tend to know and care about whatever is “best” regardless of how close “best” is to everything else.
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