[EricH]

While a state school might have an accredited program just the same, small schools/programs like that excel because they're focused on producing far-more-than-competant engineers, rather than just a bunch of guys/gals that have a diploma with a BS in [field] engineering because they got by on a bunch of C's and some B's while partying for four years.

I think that's what a lot of people are getting annoyed at. You're implying that they're getting by on C's and B's while partying. And let me tell you this: To date, I have taken ONE C (and a few retakes) in my engineering classes (Thermo II, to be exact); I have another 4 in my math courses. For me, it's a bunch of B's and a bunch of A's, and very little partying, and I'm in my 5th year.

I'm more annoyed because you're assuming all state schools are large. SDSM&T, where I go, has somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 undergrad students, and is a state school, and specializes in engineering/science. And we're highly rated. (Don't even get me going about our competition teams--we've had at least one year where every team--at that time, 12 of them--was in the top 10 at competition.)

Stereotyping negatively doesn't exactly make you the most liked person in the area that you stereotype negatively, for some reason.