All true facts unfortunately. To get better teachers you have to attend a "teaching" college/university. This name is detrimental, as most students would probably be happier at such a place. The "research" university really isn't for everyone but they get the most prestige and people think, oh I should go there learn from the "brightest mind in the field".

The value of Stanford, MIT, CMU, etc. isn't that the professors are so good at teaching; it's that they are smart student aggregators. Nothing motivates you like not being the smart one anymore.

That might be true of some people. For someone coming from a small town where everyone told him that he would go on to do amazing, wonderful things, it can be very depressing for him to learn that he is nothing special.

That's more of a feature than a bug.

The opposite can be true too, I expected to get tanked at CMU and did pretty well (3.65 gpa, senior thesis, going to Facebook). If I'd gone to Ohio State like the majority of my peers from High School (Hilliard Darby High School has sent a whopping two people to top tier engineering schools (CMU and MIT) and none to Harvard) and even gotten a 4.0, I never would have believed I was more than a "talented state school kid."

At the end of the day, it's on you to put yourself in the most challenging situation you can possibly survive so that you can learn the most. Sheltering one's fragile ego never did much for anyone in the long run.

It certainly motivated me.

(former small town kid, went to Carnegie Mellon and realized I wasn't "the smart one" any more)

Generally true, although the Engineering department at my university (Waterloo) had a focus on making sure the teachers met a high "you must be this good at teaching bar" so the professors I had were routinely good.

Stanford's CS department hires lecturers (not professors) to teach many undergraduate classes, especially the introductory ones. Lecturers aren't expected to do research, and are hired based on their teaching ability. The ones I had were all incredible teachers.

More accurately, their grant-winning ability, which is a function of prestige etc sure, but it's not why they're hired.