I'm curious about this. I went to a good university (though not known for CS), and I thought that most of my classmates were apathetic/just in it for the money. I certainly never saw the sort of enthusiasm that I see from people on HN (or my co-workers at my startup job).

Are places like CMU or MIT utopias of hacking-related discussion?

(I mean at the undergraduate level, that is)

I went to Harvard and spent a lot of time at MIT. While not universal through the campuses, you can definitely find environments with the feelings described above.