So basically schools are ranked by how well they turn someone from a very poor household to an elite income.

I have a sister in law that worked at USC in financial aide. It was always surprising to me that kids would qualify for pell grants and other grants enough to pay for $25-35k tuitions. I kind of grew up that you kind of buy things that you could afford. Growing up in SoCalif, we referred to USC as a place where a lot of rich kids went. When i learned from my SIL that this isn't necessarily the case I was a bit surprised. It still kind of rubs me wrong that tax payers are paying money (pell grants) towards someone to go to a very expensive USC when they could have paid for a state school at 10% the price or a school like BYU which was about 20%. I look at a USC as a luxury