See, this is the weird thing with "Elistist". You both are kind of right.
Utlimately it IS a state of mind. However, one enters into that state of mind from many different avenues.
There are social elitists. People that enter into the state of mind through a belief of their social circle, their clique, their club, their organization, whatever is better than others or has a certain standard (either defined or in pr actice) and those that don't meet that standard just aren't good enough to be a part of that group.
There are intellectual elitists. People who believe they are better than others because they are so much smarter then them and look down with disgust, distaste, pity, humor, etc on others they deem unintelligent.
There are economic elitists. People who believe they are better than others because they have money, either by the fact of having said money or the way in which they gained said money. They own fancier things, they go to fancier places, and they think it somewhat beneath them to act like the "lower class" or the "poor", or find it "quaint" or "trendy" in a belittling way to do or use such things as almost a joke.
There are skilled elitists. People who are very skilled at certain things and thus have no toleration or desire to interact with others of far less skill when doing said things, save for perhaps to embaress them to affirm their own skill at their particular activity.
I'm sure there are more, but those are some of the classifications I could think of off hand. And you can have hybrid ones. Some members of Country Clubs tend to have an air of Social and Economic elitism where as some Ivy League School students could be Intellectual elitists mixed with Social and/or Economic. Another odd hybrid that one may not think of would be gamer snobs, generally skill and economic elitism, good gamers with high end computers that enjoy to ridicule and take advantage of poorer skilled ones or people who don't have the best connection and fastest specs. Other groups that most don't associated with elitism could very well fill in. Take high schools, everyone always associates the "popular crowd" perhaps with a slight "elitist" attitude in its upper ranks...however at times you find an intellectual elitism amongst the "outcasts" who believe themselves to be so much smarter and more mature in their views of the world.
All these various types of elitism utlimately lead one to a particular mindset that essentially is what manifests the elitism, but its through those different roots that its given birth. I think trying to act like its either one or the other is frankly attempting to change it up to fit your desired argument. It is a frame of mind, but it is a frame of mind entered into generally due to some sort of reason such as social, economic, etc.
Additionally, simply being a part of such a generalized group does not mean one will have said mindset however. Take for example a gentleman by the name of Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Washington Capitals and now the Washington Wizards. Ted is very wealthy and someone whose social circle without question runs amongst a number of "higher class" people; if nothing else just his fellow owners as there are not an extremely large amount of owners of franchises in the four major U.S. Sports let alone owning 2 of them. Yet "elitist" is one of the last things you'd hear most people refer to Ted Leonsis as. This is because despite the fact that he falls within the realms which would possibly tend to give rise to it, he's stayed realitively grounded. He calls into local sports talk radio while riding around in his car to give his opinion on the random topic going on, he responds to fan emails every day that come into his blog of which he regularly writes on out of his own interest of keeping the public informed about what's going on with the teams. He routinely is seen walking through the stands, talking with fans, and going out of his way at times to sacrifice revnue in exchange for a better fan experience and a better shot at the team winning not just for him but in all honesty for the city.
Its very possible to go to an ivy league school, to be a member of a country club, to be a great athlete, to be wealthy and not be an "elitist". However those things can be the basis of which an elitist mentality is formed around those individual things as the justification for that elitism. It just doesn't mean that it definitely WILL lead to that