Maybe, just to be devils advocate here, BA are effectively leaving that criteria in there to prevent every halfwit who fancies a job applying. It's common knowledge that it costs as much as 120k to get qualified and anyone who has serious aspirations would just look at that figure as something to work towards. It's not an insurmountable amount of money, it's far from easy but it's not impossible and those who are determined will find a way.
This approach may block out a number of applicants but they may have made a judgement call that that's worth doing rather than have 150,000 applications to sift through.
I'm not saying I agree with this, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's part of their thinking.
I would however say that "asking questions" of BA is a waste of time as they answer to their shareholders only, not us forum dwellers.