Poor wording on my part, but that's definitely not what I was shooting for at all. Degrees are still degrees - I'm not trying to take away from that at all, but

Poor wording on my part, but that's definitely not what I was shooting for at all. Degrees are still degrees - I'm not trying to take away from that at all, but as the successive sentence to the one you have quoted says - all I mean is nobody stands out because they've got a degree anymore, because it is the new norm to have one. Same for any kind of merit; if everyone has the same merit, then nobody stands out.