"Which is why some forward thinking airlines are ditching the HR test and qualification selection for something closer to what it was years ago where the Chief Pilot or DFO would look at the entire person and decide if he fitted their criteria for being the right person to employ. "
LOL! I had to interview replacements when I was leaving a large company in Bristol as its Chief Pilot, and they all went through the psycho test as part of the human remains nonsense - I wouldn't have picked any one of them, subsequently proved right.
To the OP - don't worry too much about degrees - many of the most influential movers and shakers in this world don't have one, which makes them more able to think out of the box. The only time I found anything like that actually useful was in dealing directy with the type of customer whose brother was a crew chief in Vietnam and therefore knows everything - in those type of countries (Canada, USA on the oil patch) a PhD really kicks butt. Otherwise, they are arguably useful for management positions, but reread the first sentence! Most HR departments put something like that in as a means of weeding people out.