Tuition is ridiculous. Its one thing to pay it at a top notch ivy league school, maybe you will earn that back in your career eventually but they get so many qualified applicants it is like winning a lottery to get in. There is a huge drop from there to other private non ivy league schools in terms of prestige/education/earnings potential but they are almost as expensive. Really hard to justify it.
My son is going to Umass Amherst, he was accepted into the Commonwealth honors college and he loves it. (Just finished his freshman year) For the money I don't think you can beat it. Its intended to compete with the ivy league schools in terms of the education, they take some regular Umass classes and some honors classes (with different faculty). They have separate dorms and its not a zoo, but you pay state school tuition rates. One of the few things our state has done that seems smart.
Another nice thing is that they accept the AP class credits so he will be able to skip taking some of the normal required classes which frees them up to take more interesting classes.