A few thoughts. . .
* Using the Web-o-Metric for legitimate rankings of a university is laughable; take a look at how they devise their rankings-it has everything to do with how many papers/documents/citations are found on search engines and nothing to do with anything else. When Cal Tech is ranked below the "U", when Yale checks in at #30, Princeton at #40, and U of Chicago at #46, you really really need to question the data.
* I'm not a big fan of the US News & World Report's annual college ranking, but if you want to refer to rankings of universities from the most popular source for these things, you'll find Stanford tied for #4 and the "U" tied for #61 in top national universities.
* Stanford's admittance rate for 2010 is slightly over 7%, trailing only Harvard in most difficult universities to gain admission.
* Stanford's total undergrad population is roughly 6,500, while the "U" is approximately 32,500. The ratio of student to faculty at Stanford is 6:1, at the "U" it's 19:1.
* The retention rate of Stanford students from freshman to sophomore year is 98%; at the "U" it is 88%. Graduation rates for students who began Stanford in Fall 2002 is 79% within 4 years and 94% within 6 years; at the "U" those numbers are 44% and 61%.
I'm not stating all these numbers to disparage the "U", but rather to point out that Stanford exists on a different plane in the academic universe than the "U" (and most every other university in the world). Stanford's
the west coast Ivy, with better athletics obviously. Stanford carries a world-wide reputation/name recognition that is probably only matched by the top of Ivy League for academic excellence. I would hope any student-athlete would seriously consider an offer to Stanford and any student who chooses Stanford cannot be blamed nor should be questioned. It stands head and shoulders above any major conference D-1 university in academic reputation.
One last point, the demographics of Stanford's student body is 36% California, 54% other states, and 10% international. At the "U", the student body is 71% Minnesota, 25% other states, and 4% international. So, to the argument of average wages being higher in California than Minnesota accounting for the disparity, I agree that you're looking at Minnesota grads likely staying in Minnesota or the upper midwest, but I don't know that you can make the same claim towards Stanford grads.
Sources:
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings
http://nces.ed.gov/COLLEGENAVIGATOR/
http://www.ucan-network.org/
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010-admissions-tally/