Which is why universities (and especially the more prestigious) are dropping such courses as fast as they can get away with it. I'd make a small wager that actual lab class hours have dropped drastically since you were there.
Thus one of the reasons for the downturn in our engineering education. Too many schools want to sell easy degrees to those who want a ticket in a field, not those who have a passion for it. Expensive lab equipment is required for the latter type.
This was the reason for a recent article condemning modern software engineering courses. They want to teach only easy languages like Java to appeal to everyone and fill courses where students basically build applications from existing pieces. The days of actually learning the hard nuts and bolts of programming are getting shorter.
You'd lose. If anything they've increased. I am involved in the admissions process for MIT and keep in touch with people there.