Just ask Jim Crumb, chief operating officer at World Media Co., an Omaha World Wide Web developer. Required U.S. companies are playing a new game by old rules, and the old rules call for a college degree. But Al Walker doesn't think it's necessary. There's also a presumption that people with degrees will be better at soft skills such as communication and teamwork. Others argue that degree holders don't necessarily have those qualities and nondegreed people don't necessarily lack them.
People are stubborn.
Ready, Aim, Shoot Self in Foot Stubbornness on this issue can get companies in trouble. In another organization, the only non-degreed IS person had grown over five years into such a respected user guru that the company was debating whether he was qualified to do the job he was doing. That's why they got where they are. Ironically, non-IT companies don't seem to have the same faith in their own internal recruiters. They'll pay a premium to hire a non-degreed contractor, but if he applied for a permanent job that required those same skills, he wouldn't make the first cut.