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This report compares the earnings of people who have completed a bachelors degree at a university with the earnings those who completed a similar qualification at a polytechnic. The key finding of the report is that there is no evidence to substantiate claims of labour market discrimination against polytechnic degrees. In particular: there is no discrimination at the point of entry into the labour market - the median earnings of those entering the workforce with a bachelors degree from a polytechnic are roughly the same as those with a university bachelors degree; over time, university graduates gain a modest margin over polytechnic graduates; in many areas where the polytechnics have specialised in degree teaching - business, computing and engineering - the differences are very slight and in some fields, polytechnic graduates earn more than university graduates on average; and university graduates tend to predominate at the upper ends of the earnings distribution - bachelors graduates with the highest earnings are more likely to have taken their degree at a university.