I don't know much about the US, but in Europe the majority of colleges is now teaching either java or C++ as the first language, and only a minority is teaching scripting languages as PHP. I guess it's easier for students to understand higher-level languages and to transport their knowledge to other languages (or, at least, it was easy for me).
More that it is easier for a classroom to teach an old stable language than invest in new things that might not last. It is rare to see an accomplished programmer who started writing any code in Java... most started with JS (younger folks) or educational environments like Logo/Scratch or super simple envs like Basic.
"It is rare to see an accomplished programmer who started writing any code in Java" are you serious? I know a lot [here in DC]. I personally started with Pascal->C->Java->(all the scripts)->C#
