As an IT pro and graduate, I've been involved in the recruitment of programmers and the very first requirement on the job spec. is a degree or HND or equivalent level qualification in a relevant discipline. Candidates without were rejected straight away and HR would not allow them to be even considered.
Interesting. What are the disciplines of degrees that you allow and what do you consider to be an "equivalent level qualification in a relevant discipline"?
Good question. It would be good to know what the programmer jobs concerned are, to see if the requirement makes any kind of sense. The automatiic exclusion of those without a degree suggests (if we are talking about real degrees, not current USA - or 19th century UK - 2 year Associate degrees) suggests that there is a requirement to be able to undertake serious research in CS. The acceptance of HND (or perhaps an Australian Associate degree, both counting as level 5 in the accepted UK counting system as opposed to level 4 for the current USA associate degrees) suggests something less advanced, possibly reasonable depending on the job and how it would be expected to develop over a few years, but possible still over the top as a requirement for some pogrammer jobs.
When I was first involved in hiring people to work as programmers I was happy to take on people with degrees in music, or physics, or foreign languages, or geography, or indeed pretty well anything; and I had quite a few people who had no degree at all. I had absolutely no-one with a CS degree.
Much of what is asked for from graduates they get from any (good) degree or HND course.
I've seen people with a Masters Degree who couldn't program their way out of a wet paper bag. Conversely, I've seen people with zero college credits who are wizards. Of course, the opposite applies to both. I think it's more about the individual than it is a piece of paper.