This article misses the simple fact that the type of fellow students you have will impact how well you do as a student. Humans are social creatures and will influence each other's behavior. That's not even getting into negative pressure from things like bullying.
edit: Also their point on the curriculum being similar misses the fact that the standard for doing well differs. Barely learning some material is different from understanding it well. I've had the experience of taking various college math classes from a variety of institutions. There is a very large difference in the effort I had to put in to do well at a top school versus a middling school. This is of course related to my first point on the quality of students mattering as you simply cannot have the same bar given such different student populations.
edit: Also their point on the curriculum being similar misses the fact that the standard for doing well differs. Barely learning some material is different from understanding it well. I've had the experience of taking various college math classes from a variety of institutions. There is a very large difference in the effort I had to put in to do well at a top school versus a middling school. This is of course related to my first point on the quality of students mattering as you simply cannot have the same bar given such different student populations.