The average skill level of your peers has a severe impact on the curriculum. I went to a second tier state school, and the majority of my classmates could not write code and struggled through basic data structures and algorithms theory.

I ended up learning some data structures and algorithms through ACM and codewars.com, where my peers from better schools learned them in class.

I've had multiple classes where professors said they had to remove programming assignments and projects from the course because it was reducing the pass rate below acceptable levels.

I would say no, but having taken classes at both, _how_ these courses are taught makes a huge difference. Professors, via their communication abilities, the level of effort put into making a class more interesting, and accessible marks a dramatic difference in what students can get out of a class.

As stated in the syllabus no, as seen in the classroom yes. In general the students at a top-teir university are faster on the pickup so classes can go deeper into the material. Sure 10% more in one class isn't a big deal but repeated across every class and later classes building on that deeper coverage adds up over the course of a degree program.

From talking to my friends it seems like it's not. All of the lecturers just base their teaching on the same material.

Having gone to a decent state university (Rutgers) and talking to some people who went to CMU for undergrad CS, yes.