In europe a college degree is not necessary at all, but of course doesn‘t hurt. However, you will need to be able to afford between 80.000€ to 120.000€ for the pilot training, or to get a loan over that amount. Some cadet schemes close to an airline could be cheaper, but that is kinda rare and very hard to get into. The military route is another way, but not common in europe either and has its own downsides. Being good in math, physics, team sports and english helps quite a bit. Check out Mentour and DutchPilotGirl on youtube and their social media appearance out for a european perspective. And there are of course tons more of those kinds of information around.