I'm not sure your children will necessarily have a better outcome, professionally and financially by going to another school.

First, your children must be very bright, have a top 5% percentile score on the SAT and/or ACT, and finish at the top of their high school class, in order to gain admission to elite schools above BYU. This, in and of itself, is hard to achieve.

Second, even if your children have elite SAT/ACT test scores and gain admission at elite schools, you are assuming that they will excel at such school. Elite schools are elite because they educate their students at the highest level. Students at these schools must be able to think critically, write exceptionally well (and prolifically), and communicate well. I know some will argue that BYU is just as rigorous as Ivy League schools. It's not. My point is that your children could easily go to an elite school, but perform poorly or middle of the road.

Third, you have to take into account the cost of an elite private education. My oldest son was admitted to 10 different elite private liberal arts schools back east (if you want the names, boardmail me). I visited every school with my son on three different trips back east and fell in love with many of them. Bottom line: the cost became a significant factor because they all cost $65,000/yr and we didn't qualify for any grant money because my income was too high. I wasn't willing to pay $250,000 for an undergraduate degree, even if it was from an elite private school back east.

Fourth, don't underestimate the things of the world your child will be exposed to at some of these schools. You may think that your kid can handle it, but they may not be able to. During a few of our school visits, my son spent the night with some football players in the dorms. The next day, my son told me about the parties he went to and all of the alcohol, drugs and sex he witnessed, and this was just at one overnight stay with a bunch of "brilliant" kids from back East.

In an nutshell, I agree that your child may be slightly hurt in the real world with a BYU degree, but I'm not sure your child will be better off going another route, after taking into account the other factors listed above.