I'm actually taking a seminar at the University of Minnesota this semester that involves building and modifying a quadcopter for a competition. It's run by the professor who runs the
Community College Quadcopter Competition. We're using a
Parallax ELEV-8 V2, which is a relatively high-grade DIY quadcopter. It's been very interesting and I've learned a lot, but there are quite a few kinks to work out, and I'd highly recommend that the teacher has experience troubleshooting wireless transmitters and standard electrical stuff (though this isn't as much of an issue if that teacher is also a FIRST mentor).
If you want to see what my class consists of, you can check out the course page
here (apologies for the Aerospace department website still being stuck in the 90's). Feel free to email me if you'd like a student's perspective. In my opinion there's nothing we're doing (time or skill wise) that couldn't be done by high school students meeting in a daily or block class.
Another thing: I'd highly recommend training the students with cheap "toy" quadcopters before letting them fly anything large. Also mandated rotor protection will save you a lot of pain.
EDIT: It's come to my attention that the link to the course page isn't accessible to non-UMN students. If you'd like to see a syllabus or course schedule, PM me instead.