I am actually discouraging my wife and children from pushing my children towards elite colleges and universities on the basis that they are over-priced for what they deliver.

It's quite hard to do a full estimate of the benefits you get from going to an elite college. There are a lot of intangibles and a lot of uncertainty -- consider e.g. networking potential or the acquisition of good work habits (smart students at mediocre places rapidly become lazy).

Even if you restrict yourself to the analysis of properly discounted future earning potential (and that's a very limited approach), the uncertainties are huge and your error bars will be very very wide.

I generally go by the "get into the best school you can and figure out money later" guideline :-)