Really the reason you want to go to an "elite" university is for two things: networking and opportunity. Teaching quality will average out over any reasonably good university. Research quality is totally different, but doesn't matter much as an undergrad unless you get lucky with your dissertation supervisor. At my university our dissertation choices were essentially random, though you could specify your top three.
Opportunity? The best universities can afford to ship in TED-class speakers every week, you get an instant boost in job applications and some companies directly headhunt the best students. Shedloads of funding means world class sports facilities, heavily subsidised student societies and entertainment. Depending where you go, you can hobnob with people who are highly likely to be successful [1] if that's an area you want to go into.
This is, I think, subtly different from top high schools. The difference there is that often the teaching is significantly better than at state/public funded schools. On top of that you have the opportunities that those schools can afford.
I'm not disagreeing that this is elitism, but that teaching quality should probably be a middling priority for most people.
Opportunity? The best universities can afford to ship in TED-class speakers every week, you get an instant boost in job applications and some companies directly headhunt the best students. Shedloads of funding means world class sports facilities, heavily subsidised student societies and entertainment. Depending where you go, you can hobnob with people who are highly likely to be successful [1] if that's an area you want to go into.
This is, I think, subtly different from top high schools. The difference there is that often the teaching is significantly better than at state/public funded schools. On top of that you have the opportunities that those schools can afford.
I'm not disagreeing that this is elitism, but that teaching quality should probably be a middling priority for most people.
[1] The classic example is PPE at Oxford: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/feb/23/ppe-oxford...