As someone who attended State U for undergrad, I agree that you can get an excellent education at a good public university.

But since I brought up the private school endowments, I want to point out an article in the NY Times last year that ranked colleges by endowment per student: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/upshot/top-colleges-that-enroll-rich-middle-class-and-poor.html

There are a handful of colleges with endowments of $1M or more per student. They include HYPMS, Swarthmore and Ponoma. Not far behind are Amherst and Grinnell.

Grinnell? Apparently Grinnell is a college with a 25% admission rate and $850K in endowment per student, far above Columbia, Cornell, and UPenn that are languishing with about $200-$300K per student but which remain much more selective. Grinnell apparently puts its endowment money to use as well--about 25% of the incoming class gets a Pell grant, one of the highest percentages in the chart.

For women, Wellesley is at $600K per student with a 28% admissions rate. Richmond is above $400k per student with a 31% admissions rate. There is no guarantee that a large endowment automatically means generous financial aid. However as someone who works in finance and with some universities as clients, I know that the endowment strongly influences how much financial aid is possible.