<p>One reason that some kinds of companies might want alums of prestigious schools, that people tend to overlook, is that the name brand is impressive to the people with the money. At my company, when we write grant proposals, everyone who will be on the project gets a short bio, including their alma maters, and frankly, it’s just more impressive to the government funders to see a big name than a small name. At a lot of startups that are looking for investors, it impresses potential investors more if you can brag about how your engineers come from such and such big name schools.</p>