In the UK we have “Oxbridge”, the Yanks have “Ivy League”.
In both cases the phrase not only refers to a particular group of institutions, but it’s also used as a cultural shorthand for a certain type of person or behaviour.
Saying “this new restaurent is full of Ivy league types” is unlikely to mean “full of steamingly clever physics researchers”, but rather “suits 'n rolexes ‘n’ BMWs”.
Do other countries have the same sort of phrase? Either referring factually to a genuinely elite group of universities (however that’s defined!), or as a shorthand for a particular social subset.
I’d have thought the Russell Group was the equivalent of the Ivy League in the UK in terms of referring to the elite universities. The Russell Group comprises all large British research universities. Oxbridge still refers to toffs, though 
I’m sure I read somewhere that Germany had/has some sort of equivalent.
Japan has the Imperial universities, foremost of which is Tokyo University.
Since there is little real difference in quality between the universities in the Netherlands* - at least not in a way that is widely recognized - we can not use that as a label. I think here the good old yup is still used. Also we might refer to them as corps bal, which indicates the type that joined a particularly kind of fraternity that usually also doubles as a professional network later in life. Note that this is not a particularly positive expression.
*In the netherlands there is quite a bit of differentiation within higher education, which follows the different levels of high school that are available. Universities are only for the people with the highest high-school education and can be compared to the better international universities. Lower level higher education are often comparable to some american colleges (I know that exchange programs exist), but the faculty is mainly teaching staff and do not need to do research.