It felt like they only had a smattering of CS courses, none of which pushed them very hard.
In other words, they should fix their curriculum.
I am mentoring a CS student at another university and have had some challenges bringing this student along because the fundamentals are just not being taught. I took some time to compare it to Howard's curriculum, and I see some really practical courses offered at Howard - a 1 credit intro to OO and Java, Unix Lab, etc. Not that these make one a computer scientist, but when hiring entry level kids out of college, I would expect these skills to be somewhat solid, and that is not the case with really any CS programs today.
You shouldn't leave the elite programs out of the equation. I've helped to interview a good handful of people who went to elite institutions and had done difficult, important work, but couldn't answer our interview questions correctly. We don't even use hard interview questions, just three that expect you to know some tricks-of-the-trade for systems programming and basic processor architecture.
But I can't fix the world. It's not my fault that at non-top-20 colleges they fail to teach basic things.
Cost is a huge consideration for prospective college student, especially since the onset of the Great Recession.
Furthermore, quality education is available at (I would estimate) most institutions of higher learning. It's just that the students have to do some research to find out who the good professors are at the less prestigious schools.
I think you are doing yourself, your company, and the graduates of less prestigious institutions of higher learning a great disservice being so dismissive toward "lesser" schools.
Especially people that aren't coming from wealthy families, as their need based aid programs will pay 100%.