I've never needed a degree to get a job as a developer. 15 years now. I have a degree in philosophy.

Someone with a CS degree is not a developer.

A subset of companies think you need a CS degree to be a developer. Yours is one. That you work somewhere that is so vehemently anti-autodidactic programmers means you are incapable of objectively judging.

In my experience good developers don't have to have degrees and there are many bad developers with degrees.

Basically, degrees are a poor indicator of developer skill.

In reality, programming is a vocation, not an academic subject and many academics are very poorly suited for programming.