I’ve heard people say this about difficult colleges or degrees before, so you’re not alone. The push to make something overly hard can simply leave some capable people behind by not matching their style or pace of learning. But also I think some of the less famous universities simply care about teaching while the top ones leave that to random grad students and instead brag about their research credentials. The thing is, professors doing research doesn’t help students learning.

I think all that matters is that most if not all professors care about teaching. And my experience at top universities has been that most still care about teaching and the grad students they need to rely on is because of the class size. There were definitely some that were basking in their own glory from the past, but those were few. Can’t tell about all universities, but I’d assume it’s the same everywhere. The reality is that given what it takes to become a tenured professor, you’re bound to have at least a few who generally suck at teaching.