It's the former. RIT is a pretty good school for science, technology and visual arts (Kodak and Xerox donated stupid amounts of money over the years). Like any college, you get out what you put in. It also has its fair share of over-confident freshmen. You know the type: always the smartest person in the room all throughout high school. When they actually have to do work to keep up, they "lose interest." Sometimes they don't even understand what they don't understand, and start to think they can teach themselves as much in an afternoon as a course covers in a quarter. As they say in the computer departments, "If you can't hack it, pack it." Someone has to design those boxes for Apple.

None of this is to say that university is the one (or even best, or even a good) way for a specific individual to start his/her career. But college-bound kids could do much worse than RIT.

I went there for a few years, so take what I say with the appropriate amount of salt.