hey atpcliff
in the united states you cannot fly the major and legacy airlines without a bachelors degree. you can only fly regional airlines and the biggest aircraft in the regional airlines is an embraer 190 or crj 900, so without a degree you can never fly a boeing, md, tupelov or airbus which are the aircraft flown by the major and legacy airlines. and flying the regional airlines you dont earn anything even half of what major or legacy pilots earn so a degree is a definate must in todays world. i train at utah valley university and thats just how the us aviation system is.