Depends on the degree and what you do with it (Score 1)

For many professions (IT comes to mind) the University is much less important than your job performance, recommendations, etc after you get past your first job. However, for some professions a elite university is a must to simply get in the door. If you want to get an MBA and go into Management Consulting, you will have little chance at a top 5 or 10 consulting firm unless you attend an "elite" university for the simple reason that these firms only recruit at certain schools and getting in outside of the standard college recruiting cycle is extremely difficult. So again, it depends on what you want to do and what degree you want to get.