Some silly things in this thread I find myself disagreeing with near all sides.
1. Oxbridge is a big deal and will greatly enhance your employment prospects, as things currently stand some moves by particular employers and shifts in public attitude threaten this. Should that go further I fear for the very future of this country. However I don't want to derail this thread with that.
I am sure you can great great jobs with Degrees from other institutions, and I am sure some employers would have good reason to pick a non Oxbridge candidate if there were other factors.
However any employer who was just as happy with a 2:1 from (insert random poly) as from Oxbridge clearly does not understand the difference. in most cases your not getting 2:1 or better without working 45+ hours a week at Oxbridge. At a lot of polytechnics you can pull this of with 10 hours, I am really not kidding.
when it comes to top Russel group unis it is conceivable that for certain subjects they can come close to match or even beat Oxbridge. However unless your potential employer is aware of this and is in the specific field the rep of Oxbridge would do you more favors.
2. The notion that students who go to Oxbridge are a superior caliber of students. if we are talking about as an aggregate average then sure this will likely hold true.
However many top students get rejected and still achieve straight A*s, and could well be smarter and harder working then those that successfully gain a place.
to assume that they always select the best every time without fail is to assume that the Oxbridge admissions team are infallible. Newsflash they may well be highly intelligent but they are not Gods. They can and will make mistakes or have imperfections in their choices.
3.
Some highly talented/able students will not pick OxBridge for good reasons such as the course not been relevant to what they want to pursue. Different courses offer different course material and some do not even have a course for the specific topic. This does not always mean that is a mickey mouse degree it can be a highly specific degree.