Oxbridge boasts a phenomenal reputation; its academic excellence is rightly admired the world over. To get a vital boost to their CVs, school-leavers fight bitterly for the outstanding education Oxbridge offers. Obviously, only a few people can win places at these esteemed institutions, and it’s the privately educated who tend to make the cut. Despite their brilliance, Oxbridge and its graduates haven’t solved this pressing issue.

The social inequality manufactured by Oxford and Cambridge is seen as a glitch, a nasty taint on an otherwise flawless record. The overall reputation of our best universities is, however, questionable if they can’t help repair Britain’s deteriorating higher education system.

Teeming with freshers, yesterday the Cambridge Union’s chamber debated whether Oxbridge was a force for good. Clarissa Farr, High Mistress of St. Paul’s Girl’s School, predictably listed the universities’ wonderful alumni and concluded that anyone who thought Oxbridge wasn’t fabulous was basically insane.

Debaters opposing her talked extensively about Oxbridge’s privilege problem, emphasising that as long as the ruling classes come from these universities, we’re unlikely to see any change. Disappointingly though, they never really disputed Farr’s main point: Oxbridge is a force for good because it is an intellectual powerhouse. Though questioning this statement may seem counter-intuitive, it’s important that we do just that.

Given Oxbridge’s wealth and history, its status is entirely unsurprising. In 2013 Cambridge’s endowment was £4.9 billion, Oxford’s £4.03 billion. The next richest UK university was Edinburgh, with a comparatively meagre endowment of £284 million. Individually, the endowments of Oxford and Cambridge are greater than the next four universities in Europe combined – so if they weren’t the continent’s best academic institutions, it would be embarrassing. Of course other factors are important, but with that much money to spend on their education, it’s really no wonder Oxbridge graduates reign supreme.

So Oxbridge is doing as expected intellectually. But to be a force for good, it must do more. Brilliance is going beyond what is expected, achieving something nobody thought possible. For an institution to be truly outstanding, it has to overcome its greatest difficulties – things it has repeatedly failed at before.

The most obvious problem Oxbridge faces is its leading role in our absurdly unequal university system. We all pay the same fees, but some people – normally the richest – receive an Oxbridge education, and most people don’t. Yes, we need to get more state school children into our elite institutions, but that’s only a part of the solution. Our other universities need more money and attention, so an excellent higher education, with supervision-style teaching, is more widely available.

If Oxbridge runs our country, and it’s the genius it says it is, maybe it should prove itself and help fix our failing higher education system.

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