Just thinking through this, since the challenge is worth thinking about.
Degree
Starting from A-levels (the usual: maths, further maths, physics, chemisty, general studies) I did a degree in Aeronautical Engineering at one of the UK's better universities (Southampton). That took me:
3 years x 3 terms x 12 weeks x approximately 50 hours per week.
So, that equates to about 5,400 hours. Let's say I was less energetic and averaged 40 hours per week - that makes it 4,320 hours.
ATPL
Personally, I studied for CPL writtens (I don't think that this is much different to ATPL since like most distance learning schools, the one I used bundled us with the ATPL students anyhow, and we did the ATPL practice papers) over about 2 years, putting in an average of about 5 hours per week plus 3x1-week residential groundschool. So, that would come to about 640 hours. Add in the flying 25 hours x (say) 4 hours total effort per flying hour = 100 hours. So, about 740 hours to get to CPL. For me, but I did have a lot of educational and flying experience prior to that so may not be a good example.
Or you can do it full time - a quick search shows residential schools advertising 5-6 months full time and I know that is pretty intense so let's assume 6 months x 60 hours per week without breaks = 1560 hours, plus the 100 hours for flying, so 1660 hours to get a CPL with ATPL writtens.
I've omitted a couple of things here - I've not included the IR+MCC+multi+1500 hours to get to full ATPL, but nor have I included the 2 years of industrial training, followed by 2 years of working responsibility, followed by Engineering Council presentations and interviews to become a Chartered Engineer, so I think that they're reasonably comparable (I don't know what FL had to go through after his degree to qualify as a lawyer, but imagine that it was roughly comparable). I've also omitted entry qualifications - a PPL for an ATPL course, and A-levels for a degree.
So, I reckon that if we take that ratio: 4320hrs/1660hrs, that makes the degree by my reckoning in the order of 2.6 times more work than the ATPL. If we take FL's part time humanities degree at Kings College [Note: this is engineer .v. lawyer banter, and not a serious criticism.] he comes out at 2,400 hours, which is still about 50% more hours than an ATPL - when we take the lowest estimated hours for a degree, and highest estimated hours for an ATPL..
Having said that, I will agree with a few points:
(1) Some universities, particularly some of the post 1992 "universities" which used to be polytechnical or HE colleges are certainly awarding qualifications called degrees which I wouldn't personally recognise as such. To be fair however, not all of them.
(2) Yes, student professional pilots should be regarded as students in the eyes of "the system"; I'd only add in that I'd only do so on a full time course and subject to entry qualifications equivalentish to university entry. Realistic entry qualifications should probably then be a couple of A-levels and a PPL, which seems a reasonable alternative to 3, probably better, A-levels for degree entry.
G