As a former JPLer, I'd disagree with you. When I joined in 2002, over 65% of JPL's employees had at least a bachelors. Still, 40% had a secondary degree (MS o

As a former JPLer, I'd disagree with you. When I joined in 2002, over 65% of JPL's employees had at least a bachelors. Still, 40% had a secondary degree (MS or MBA). It was not unusual to see people get passed on promotions for Team Leads and/or Managers because they did not have a second degree. Even the Business Administrators (BAMs) were on track to being required to have an MBA when I left in 2010. Think BAMs as Executive Secretaries for a Line of Business (Section) for about 30-50 people. It was severely career limiting if people looking to move up from Group (5-20 people) to Section (30-50), to Division (100-300), to Directorate (100-1000) to Executive Council (strategic direction for all of JPL) without the appropriate experience and/or degree(s). The Director for the Lab (think CEO) for JPL during my tenure was Dr. Charles Elachi; he had 6 degrees. I interviewed with people with PhDs in Astro-Meteorology (literally Space Weather and weather on other planets) who knew 10x more about Compilers and Compiler Theory than I did as a recent CS grade at the time. All the while, almost everyone I worked with was an absolute pleasure to work with. Special, scary smart, and the best of humanity does not begin to describe those amazing people.