I finished a UK Comp Sci degree a few weeks ago. The quality of the degree depends significantly on what modules the student picks. If they decide to take all the easy modules with little extra programming or theoretical knowledge then they will come out with a useless degree and become part of that 15%. Fortunately at my uni (Nottingham) some of the more theoretical (as in actual Comp Sci) modules were mandatory.

A good example of something that has crossed over from research into reality is the Generics in .Net, that started out as a compiler mod by some guys in MS Research.