I’m interested in what you find so bizarre and asinine in my post. To restate, my friend chose to go directly to flight school without ever completing a degree either during or after, got hired at an international major and flew there for a decade, but now cannot get any response to his applications at US majors because he never got that degree.

Do you have any information that indicates degrees are not preferred to the point of essentially being required at US majors? Would you have any advice you could offer other than mine, which was to get a degree online?