Herc Jerk is correct.
From personal experience, a degree or post grad degrees, do not help your chances in GA in Australia. Forget Aviation degrees, Forget MBAs - no-one gives a toss.
I don't know whether a degree hinders an airline application in Australia, but if the attitudes are anything like GA, forget it.
If you have one you are probably better off not putting it on your GA pilot CV, just like it's better not to put your CPL on your Coles résumé.
I like to think of them as "soft degrees" and "hard degrees". A dedicated integrated aviation degree is definately "semi-soft" and "just an engineering degree" would stand you in much better sted.
cjam this is just cr@p... just about any University degree has substance in it. Very few degrees are soft. Different fields require different challenges. Some degree may be more relevant than others to any given field of work. (Some degrees even help you learn to spell “stead” and “definitely”!!!)
Some Aviation degrees did have a lot of relevant substance in them- but they are a thing of the past now. Airlines don't care about them - and airlines have the real buying power.
Some Aviation degrees were not in any way soft and they were more relevant to Aviation than an Eng degree.
The difference is...an Eng degree allows you to be an Engineer instead of a pilot after you graduate- very useful for a lot of graduates who don't get an airline gig for whatever reason.
The point is... in Aviation, unless you want to be an Air Traffic Controller, a degree is next to useless ‘Dunnunda’ and may only be good for what scatboy3 said.
(C'mon someone comment on my incorrect grammar or pick me up on a spelling mistake...pleazzzze...)