I'm telling you from my experience digital media is just a garbage field. A guy I went to school witch's big idea at the time was a website that was Google.com but with 56 'o's' because that's how many zeroes googol has. I've seen his name on lists of influential digital media artists. If someone told me the YouTube poop community has produced work of more merit than all the digital media programs in the country I would seriously consider the validity of that statement
I can agree with you and still hate on CalArts. Keep in mind : my friends were the ones who had to build a digital media degree out of the roll-your-own-major toolbox and whose theses were "web pages" while I tend to share the set with PAs who have worthless degrees from every media program in the nation. I have seen every side of this particular coin.