It's time to recognize that legal or organizational requirements for certain professions and government jobs to hold a college degree is a burden not only to talented people who are otherwise qualified to do the job, but leads to numerous burdens on society. These requirements have led to for-profit diploma mills, "nonprofit" universities charging $80k per year leading to billions in student debt that may never be paid off, and people who play the system to pad their salaries for no real benefit to the organizations or the people they serve.
For instance, in my state, billions in additional salary and pensions have been paid out over the past 50+ years to corrections and police officers who get a graduate degree. It's part of the "Quinn Bill" (https://www.mass.edu/osfa/initiatives/pcipp.asp) which dates to the Johnson Administration!
In 1967, the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (the Johnson Crime Commission) released a report recommending more education for police officers. It said in order for the quality and effectiveness of American criminal justice to improve, its practitioners needed better training.
A friend who's a cop says the graduate degree programs that have sprung up to serve the Quinn Bill market are a complete joke, but everyone with a college degree completes them to boost their salaries, which carries over to their pensions. Note that police already get rigorous training outside of these programs in areas such as accident reconstruction, de-escalation techniques, forensics, etc.
Moreover, you don't even need a degree to become a police officer or corrections officer. In New England states are dropping age requirements to 18 or 19, because there is such a big shortage of staff: https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/02/27/essex-county-sheriff-lo...