[Locomotive Breath]

I went to Duke, taught at NC State U for 14 years, and am a resident of NC. It depends on your aspirations. What you're paying for at Duke is not the education per se but nationwide access, contacts, and network. UNC is a fine school but due to our legislature's parochial attitude, the only people you're ever going to meet there are other North Carolinians who generally intend to stay in NC. If you want a career in NC only that's fine, but if you want a career that might take you to multiple parts of the country, or overseas, at Duke you'll exposure to a lot broader range of people, and those classmates will end up in positions of influence all over the place which gives you a leg up when you move there or need to know something about that location.

[riverdawg]

Well said. There is an old (Russian) proverb: “you don’t buy your house, you buy your neighbors.” Same thing with a college; private-college the extra tuition at a private college buys you better classmates, not better facilities or better instruction.