We have a wonderful comparison of the East Coast society and the West Coast. The great universities of Harvard and Stanford are the valid comparison.
The East Coast is built on a traditional hierarchical inherited society that no longer exists in America. Harvard was always a central pillar of that society. Harvard today still reaps the rewards from two centuries of elitist hereditary power. It is still the locus for people who expect to be powerful in the future in government and law, and on Wall Street. In fact the most famous institutions at Harvard are concerned with government and law.
The West Coast is a non-hereditary society built on hard work competence and ambition. The school for the West is Stanford. At Harvard the engineering, computer and mathematical skills are focused at MIT. At Stanford they are the major important departments, including one of the first core computers used in forming the Internet.
Harvard is a model of modern day Leftwing sorcery and Lefty environmental voodoo.
Stanford on the other hand, had Condoleezza Rice as a Dean, and has the Hoover institution as its leading intellectual home.
Harvard is the past and Stanford, with its creation of Silicon Valley, is the future.