Does it Matter Where You Get Your Bachelor’s Degree from?

August 27, 2026 – Most Ontario bachelor’s degree graduates earn similar early-career salaries regardless of the type of post-secondary institution they attend, according to a new C.D. Howe Institute report. The exception is graduates of medical doctoral universities, institutions with medical schools and a broad range of research programs, who typically earn about $6,700 more per year three years after graduation than others.

In “Degrees of Difference: Comparing Bachelor’s Degree Outcomes Across Ontario Colleges and Universities,” authors Roger Pizarro Milian, Zavid Zarifa, David Walters and Fatemeh Ameli examine data from 2013 to 2019 to assess whether the type of institution where students earn a bachelor's degree is associated with differences in their early-career earnings and the likelihood of further graduate study.

Outside of graduates from medical doctoral universities, the authors find that early-career earnings for bachelor’s graduates of comprehensive schools, primarily undergraduate universities and colleges offering bachelor’s degrees only differed by about three percent.

“The main disparity in earnings is between graduates of medical doctoral universities and the rest of the system,” says Pizarro Milian, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Guelph. “Beyond that, the differences are surprisingly small. Earnings profiles across the rest of the system, including college Bachelor’s graduates, are highly comparable.”

Graduates from medical doctoral institutions were also found to be most likely to enroll in a graduate or second-entry program (32.3 percent) within three years, followed by those who attended primarily undergraduate universities (21.9 percent) and students from comprehensive institutions (21.3 percent). Notably, only roughly one in 20 college bachelor graduates were likely to enroll in these programs. These differences shrink, but don’t entirely disappear, once the authors account for a range of demographic and other controls.

Read the Full Report

For more information, contact: Roger Pizarro Milian, Adjunct Professor, University of Guelph; and Lauren Malyk, Manager, Communications, C.D. Howe Institute, 416-873-6168, lmalyk@cdhowe.org. 

The C.D. Howe Institute is an independent not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to raise living standards by fostering economically sound public policies. Widely considered to be Canada’s most influential think tank, the Institute is a trusted source of essential policy intelligence, distinguished by research that is nonpartisan, evidence-based and subject to definitive expert review.

Want more insights like this? Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest research and expert commentary.