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A lot of schools have a guaranteed transfer program. For example anyone can get into one of the second tier Wisconsin schools just by applying, and then if you get above a 3.0 you can transfer into Madison.
Try Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah. They've got a competitive (if not top-tier) CS program, fantastic library, beautiful campus, and tuition is 20% of what you'd pay at other private schools. Warning: not a party school
Being Mormon helps as well. :-) You don't have to be Mormon to go there, but well over 90% of the students there are Mormon.
That being said, it's a nice school.
What state are you in? Most states have at least one good public university, and these are generally fairly easy to get into and fairly cheap (if you're from in-state). If there's not a good one in your state, try one in a nearby state. It'll be more expensive and harder to get into, but still generally cheaper/easier than a private school. I can personally recommend UNC-Chapel Hill (nice campus, small town, good mix…
I'm in California, so Berkeley is an obvious option.
What state are you in? Most states have at least one good public university, and these are generally fairly easy to get into and fairly cheap (if you're from in-state). If there's not a good one in your state, try one in a nearby state. It'll be more expensive and harder to get into, but still generally cheaper/easier than a private school. I can personally recommend UNC-Chapel Hill (nice campus, small town, good mix…
I'm in California, so Berkeley is an obvious option.
Also think of the relationships between schools to get in the "back" door at places where the competition might be higher. For instance, at the Univ of Pittsburgh you can take one course every semester at Carnegie Mellon. The Pitt credits are cheaper but you get the instructors and knowledge at CMU. Of course, your degree would be from Pitt. Still, knowledge matters. I think the same is true of Tufts and MIT/Harvard.
A third option is going to a local state school and getting your grades in order to transfer after a year or two. You'll probably be in school a semester or two longer (cause all credits won't transfer), but your degree will have more of a "name" and you'll benefit from increased competition/knowledge.
EDIT: Sorry if this sounds disparaging of Pitt. I had a great experience there in a combined cogneuro Ph.D. program with CMU. But I know nothing of Pitt's CS department even as the cross-over of the communities made a lasting impression. You'd likely to have to work a bit harder to make those connections as an undergrad. But it is possible.
http://wsjclassroom.com/teen/teencenter/05dec_olin.htm http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may06/3432
You can take a look at Cornell. The grade criteria is not as struct as MIT/Caltech but the CS program is considered one of the best in the US.
Cornell also accepts a huge amount of transfers. It's somewhere around 20-30% when I was there.
But be aware of the stats on sites like US News. The engineering school is much more competitive to get in.
What state are you in? Most states have at least one good public university, and these are generally fairly easy to get into and fairly cheap (if you're from in-state). If there's not a good one in your state, try one in a nearby state. It'll be more expensive and harder to get into, but still generally cheaper/easier than a private school. I can personally recommend UNC-Chapel Hill (nice campus, small town, good mix…
I'm in California, so Berkeley is an obvious option.
Also don't forget PG's thoughts on elite institutions: http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0709.careycas...
I ended up at a (very) small private school about 400mi away. When I visited, the head of the CS department talked with me in his office for over an hour. From that conversation, I learned:
A) He is completely brilliant and extremely competent
B) He teaches about half of the upper-level CS courses
C) His dissertation was in an area that strongly interested me
After that it was a no-brainer. Obviously, going to a smaller, lesser-known school, I don't stand out as much on a resume. But at the "good companies", it matters more what you've done with your spare time than where you went to school.
Turns out other competent people also followed my line of reasoning. My first year there, I found two cofounders for a startup. So not only do I have a good mentor (at least as far as the tech part goes), but we all get some leeway on assignments if we were up until 1am adding a new feature to our codebase.