You’re looking at the degree requirement backwards. It’s not “why are two identical different because one has a degree”

it’s “i have 10,000 applications and need to invite 20 to interview. Does sorting by degrees get me a better candidate pool”

and it does. No way to argue that it isn’t a useful marker in that situation

the majors are soon NOT to be in that situation and I expect they will take a more focused whole-pilot approach