Am I worse off because I didn't go to MIT?

There was a time in my youth when I was naive--and silly--enough to think I could go to MIT. I had no idea what I wanted to do when got there, but that's beside the point.

I ended up going to a public state school, flunking out, and then eventually graduating from a different public institution.

So what did I miss? Am I permanently locked out of the best opportunities available because I graduated from a "lower-tier" school?

If economists Alan Krueger and Stacey Dale are correct, it only matters that I graduated, not so much where from. In a Working Paper titled "Estimating the Payoff to Attending a More Selective College: An Application of Selection on Observables and Unobservables", available here, they suggest that students with a choice of going to an elite or lower-tier school end up just about the same regardless of where they go. You can find more details, including video, at the New York Times' Economix blog.

As for going to MIT, now just about anyone can do it online.