Its been my experience that both routes produce good & bad engineers (you know this already).The route taken matters little to prospective employers only the ticket.
If taking a career path involving less time on the tools eg Quality,Safety the degree might matter a lttle more.There are career paths in the industry, which graduates have easier access to, over those vocationally trained.
Vocationally trained guys have an initial advantage in skill of hand,but as a learned skill,the academic guys quickly catch up.There also seems to be more 'weeding out'amongst aprentices,but thats just my impression.