"This is insanity. Does no one know what they're teaching?"

I doubt any systematic study has been done on the difference in curricula between MIT and Generic State U., even though it would be much easier, and MIT has 78 affiliated Nobel laureates while State U. probably has zero. You can argue from first principles (http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html) or experimental data (http://www.csis.gvsu.edu/~mcguire/worth_college_leagues.html) that elite colleges are selecting Nobel Prize winners rather than creating them, but I don't know how accurate this is. If we could make MIT and Caltech replicas pop up all over the country, it would be well worth the time and effort.