Let me put this to rest...my best friends daughter works as an IT engineer for Apple. She has a degree in that from OSU. There a lots of people with the same title as her that never even went to college but are recognized as engineers at Apple. In fact, a lot of tech companies prefer self taught IT people over degrees as they are more proficient. My future SIL has a minor in IT and said its worthless and most companies prefer non college engineers as they are better employees...
My lead developer doesn't have a degree. He is talented enough to be an architect, but doesn't want the role. If he did, he would have it. Sometimes paper is just that.