Got my Bachelor's in ICS from Georgia Tech in 1984. After a layoff from Oracle in 2012, 28 years later, my recruiter said that the Georgia Tech degree opened doors and got me interviews. I was interviewing in the metro Atlanta area but still.
Nor did MIT prevent 2 of mine when the company closed an entire office or killed an entire product. It did make the landing a lot softer and quicker I think.
Partial layoffs (20% of your job "family") are usually about the employee. Wholesale layoffs (all of a job type, all of a product team, all of a location) are generally completely independent of the specific employee, skills, capabilities, or performance.
