I went to one of the cheapest public schools in the country - University of Arizona
At the same time, it has some very highly ranked programs. I tell everyone to go there because it's a great school, and if they don't have the grades for one of their numerous scholarships then at least the degree will be cheap (cost of living there is very low, too).
U of A will accept ANYONE, but its Freshman retention rate is very low. Anyone can attend that first year, but if you can't keep your grades above a 2.0... have a good life somewhere else. I don't see why so few universities do this; the university gets one year of tuition (and probably dorm fees) at the expense of placing them in a few 500 person lecture halls. The profit margin is ENORMOUS if you just accept anyone. At the same time, make the courses very challenging so that you weed out most of the dumbasses. Thus, only excellent students get a degree (thus keeping your ranking high), but you've still earned a lot of money from the dropouts. It's win-win.
I can't understand people who randomly apply to schools without care for cost. Many people apply for schools that just cost more, even if they're actually not a good school. If you're going to wind up $100k in debt at one school vs $10k in debt at the other, and you end up with the same quality of degree, then you've failed at college.