That tends to bug me, who has no formal education beyond High School, but I have worked a lot to gain knowledge related to software development, both conceptual and practical. There's no "in" when you don't have the minimum requirements at such companies...
I have a friend who is a mid-level manager at one of the listed companies, who came in without a degree, and was promoted because of proven competence to where he is now, and is spending several hours a week working on his degree because he's been promoted to the point, none of his superiors will let him be promoted further without a degree, despite handling the job better than his peers.
On the flip side, I've worked with people with a degree in CS (or similar), who couldn't develop a good software system if their life depended on it. The other side of this is, that many people don't continue to learn and only stagnate once they become familiar with one system. Software development tools don't stop coming out... there will always be new languages and platforms, but I have always seen a lot of resistance... I'm one of the few 40+ y.o. developers I know who keeps an eye on what's coming up in the community.
Yea, hopefully my post didn't indicate that I agreed with the process. You certainly listed plenty of counter examples why it can miss the mark.
But my point was about Statistics. The HR warlords for all those defense/aero companies that have set these limits have done so because it segments the pool of candidates to one with a lower chance of bust (or so they've decided as such).
I'd like to see data, I'm some HR or consulting group somewhere has it. Or maybe it doesnt exist. A simple logistic regression problem with a high number of variables (degree or not, age, major, self-study, continuing ed, etc etc).
edit: also - all my comments are speaking from the engineering side of these companies. not IT. So the actual work content is a bit different than the original article may be concerned with.
I didn't mean to imply that you agree with the process... I think my own comment is more along the lines of, this is one of those rules people should be able to break now and then... I absolutely agree, that there are far fewer risks of people without the necessary skill/ability to do a given job in terms of those with a degree to those without. The challenge is then to not lock those who don't fit that mold out, either by experience and/or referral.
I have a friend who is a mid-level manager at one of the listed companies, who came in without a degree, and was promoted because of proven competence to where he is now, and is spending several hours a week working on his degree because he's been promoted to the point, none of his superiors will let him be promoted further without a degree, despite handling the job better than his peers.
On the flip side, I've worked with people with a degree in CS (or similar), who couldn't develop a good software system if their life depended on it. The other side of this is, that many people don't continue to learn and only stagnate once they become familiar with one system. Software development tools don't stop coming out... there will always be new languages and platforms, but I have always seen a lot of resistance... I'm one of the few 40+ y.o. developers I know who keeps an eye on what's coming up in the community.