I think it's pretty widely accepted that you don't need a degree to fly a plane (in fact it's bloody obvious!!) but you need it to get the job these days sadly!
Somebody believes that having a higher education is what life is all about. Well those pilots who came back from the war to fly our at the time modern airliners sure didn't have the same level of so called higher education as today but they had the skill to make this country what it is today without the silly bit of paper. To those now doing the hiring we built aviation in this fantastic country of ours on raw skill & guts, lets not forget that in even modern times (where it's meant to be easier & safer to pilot a plane) some peckerwood (as mentioned in "The Right Stuff") has gotta take it up & some peckerwood has gotta land it!
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Wmk2