It was certainly true when I was at university. I encountered CVS through a friend (which was sadly the best free VCS at the time), but pretty much nobody else used VCS. A few students worked out themselves that they needed something like that, and ended up with the chaotic system of renaming their files with a version number at the end.

It's sad that git (or equivalents) doesn't feature more prominently these day. It's as important a tool as compilers, debuggers and editors (although I don't remember being taught how to use them properly, either).