The location of the university you attend will have a big impact on your overall choices in addition to other factors like ranking, reputation. Being close to an industry hub can mean the difference between getting a job or not getting a job. Especially during recessions employers are reluctant to spend money on hiring candidates who live far away from their locations. So if you have a choice between 2 similarly ranked universities it might help to choose the one close to the jobs. It might help to start out with a Google Map to track the various regions I refer to below.
Silicon Valley
For the technology industry there is no place like Silicon Valley. As you've probably heard this is the region between San Francisco and San Jose. The advantages are the number of companies, the great weather, the choice of outdoor activities (from beaches in Santa Cruz to skiing in Tahoe and Yosemite) within a 4 hour radius. The downside is that the cost of living is really high. Even individuals who have lived in the Bay Area for 5 years may not be able to afford those million dollar hovels. Every city has one prominent company... Santa Clara has Intel, Mountain View has Google, Palo Alto has HP, Sunnyvale has AMD, Cupertino has Apple.
Southern California
Los Angeles and San Diego areas also have a lot of job opportunities. The big employers in the area are Qualcomm and Broadcom on the semiconductor side. San Diego is said to be a hub for telecommunications businesses. The great California weather gets better here if you like warmth. UCSD, UCLA, USC are the large recognizable universities in the area. Caltech in Pasadena is another choice if you're doing really well in college.
Texas
Texas is also great region for jobs. Austin, Dallas and Houston are the big cities here. Austin is the place most people talk about these days. UT Austin is the top school in the area and there are also a large number of companies in Austin such as AMD, ARM, Intel, IBM and the outposts of most other tech companies. Dallas has Texas Instruments and Dallas Semiconductor to name a few. The Houston area also has several large employers like oil companies, and Continental Airlines. Some of the advantages of living in Texas are a low cost of living, cheap houses and no state taxes. The weather is probably a tad too hot in the summer months.
Raleigh Durham : North Carolina
This is another fast growing region, with decent weather and a large number of employers. Three good schools in this region are Duke, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. This is probably a reason why most large companies have offices in NC now.
North East
The Boston to Washington DC corridor is another popular area for students. Boston has a large number of excellent universities and the Route-128 technology corridor with numerous companies and many others in the region from New Hampshire to Rhode Island. New York metro area has a large number of financial companies, publishing houses. Hartford about 2 hours north of New York is the insurance capital of the US, although Yale is the only highly rated university around.
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