all other things being equal, it counts for a fuck load.
I disagree with Mr Survivor - i dont have the emperical stats for unemployment rate differences between uni's, but what is clear is the "percieved quality" of the jobs obtain by graduates from different universities. ie, UNSW and Random University, lets call them UWS for example, might have 85% employment rate each for their engineering graduates. However, the graduates from UNSW are going to BHP, RIO, Transfield, etc, etc, while the UWS graduates might go to like KFC and Pizzahut. Thats why a lot of universities also measure starting salaries as a benchmark.