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When you have 100+ applicants for a job, you have to apply a filter. Requiring a degree is an easy one to apply that your boss will support. Whether you get the best candidate or limit your hiring pool is immaterial.

A guy I met years ago at a very large company had another filter - he used to split the pile of resumes in two, and throw half in the bin. He then said "I want the guy I hire to be lucky".

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For every one position we hire for we’ll see 100s of applicants, and we might have 5-10 good choices to hire. Filters are a critical part of managing a candidate pipeline, and for better or worse a degree is widely used as a filter for those companies that don’t lack a pool of qualified candidates, which also tend to be pretty attractive companies to work for.

> Requiring a degree is an easy one to apply

It’s also a safe one in terms of low rate of false positives and low rate of false negatives. There are a few, of course (if there weren’t any, there’d be no need to meet the candidates), but ability to complete a four-year-degree correlates highly with ability to complete software projects.

> ability to complete a four-year-degree correlates highly with ability to complete software projects

[citation needed]

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