I think an underappreciated difference between the US and the UK is that going to Oxbridge convinces a lot of people, especially if you come from state school, that the future leaders of the country are incompetent, privileged morons, partially because Oxbridge itself is so bad.

In contrast, if you go to an Ivy League school it seems quite easy to come away with the delusion that the United States is a meritocracy full of brilliant and talented people, and that the weighty discussions you have in class actually matter.

The general incompetence and tedium of Oxbridge, on the other hand, and the prevalence of coke-snorting public school idiots who become MPs, is a very good way to actually get a sense of what the country's powerful are like.

Ivy League schools put genuine time and effort and responsibility into their students' education. It's very sweet, and every time I sent a student to Harvard or Yale I was a little jealous looking at their first-year curriculum compared to the half-century old nonsense I did.

(Bear in mind, on the other hand, that I also had no student debt.)