That $5-10k delta could be made up within a year or two for a good developer coming from a non-namebrand CS school who puts his/her nose to the grindstone.
That is true. Good engineers will always rise above the bad ones, regardless of what background they have. But we are talking about starting salaries here.
I understand that. And it's true that it is best to negotiate the highest starting salary as possible because most people, on average, will get a standard "cost of living" (whatever that means anymore) raise increase on an annual basis. But, I wanted to point out that there is definitely hope for non-namebrand CS program graduates, too.