I know that in positions I've had in the past where I was part of hiring decision making, all of the people in the group would avoid DeVry, et al. graduates. And I don't even have a degree at all. So, yes, they're loser schools. Basically, they're technical schools.

While I understand the desire to get an education as quickly as possible, at the same time, that tends to indicate a desire to search out shortcuts, even when they don't really exist. To me, it's the same type of person who would sweep dirt under the rug.

To speak more directly about the education involved, DeVry will teach you how to program. A real university will teach you computer science. Neither will do the other. That is, DeVry will teach you which buttons to push with no understanding of what they do. A college will teach you what those buttons do, but won't tell you how they're labelled.

IMO, understanding the concepts is much more important than understanding the specifics. Once you understand the concepts, specifics are easy. If you only understand the specifcs, then any change, like needing to know a different programming language, to be specific, becomes painful. Of course, you might be able to infer the concepts from the specifics, but it's much more difficult than the other way around.

Note that my comments are based largely on computer science and not engineering, but I doubt that there would be a lot of difference in the quality.