Though they're certainly not the final word on the subject, I direct you to GGL's First Annual Top Gaming Colleges Survey.
Their rankings are explained as thus: "All of the institutions across the U.S. were evaluated on seven factors: size of the student body; geographical location; student organizations; tournaments and LAN parties; tech-friendliness; Internet connections; and curriculum. Some of the schools excel in one category and score abysmally in others. But that's okay, because we cast a wide net. You don't always need a LAN party on campus every weekend for your university to be a great place to be a gamer."
USC came in 6th place.
I don't think the list is entirely accurate (for example, USC got a ranking of 2 out of 5 in the "curriculum" category), but I think the list makes some good points. Based on my time here (I earned my undergraduate here so I'm heading into my fifth year of being a Trojan), I would agree with the assessment in the "student organizations" and "Tournaments and LANs" rankings, which are both very low. The gaming student organizations here are weak or mostly non-existant, and we have little in the way of Tournaments. The list covered USC's competition with CMU, but I personally think we should have more here at USC.
We spend an awful lot of time designing games and studying them, but I don't think we spend enough time playing them and having fun, which is really just as necessary in our development. I presented two games at Game Deconstruction salons last year (GTA: San Andreas and Resident Evil 4, for those of you curious) and a large part of the purpose of the salon was to give industry folks a rundown of big games on the gaming landscape that they simply don't have the time to play or experience for themselves.
We're going to spend much of our professional lives making things and working, and not getting as much time playing. I think we should do what we can to change that. We should be playing games just as much as we should be creating them, or at least within reason. How often do we see the same mistakes being made in multiple games? How often do we ask ourselves why developers don't look at another title that did it better and learn from it? In fact, I think many developers haven't had the chance to play those titles and consequently end up making the same mistakes that others have made. It hardly seems efficient to me.