It's such a silly requirement. One of the few local government jobs I tried to applied for denied me immediately because I don't have a degree. The requirement is built on top of a decades-long lawsuit about political patronage, where agencies are required to write very explicit hiring rules. I imagine modifications to the hiring rules for college degree requirements would require a lot of legal review before they make any changes. It's possible to get exceptions, but they're narrow and wouldn't have applied for me.