[yardie]

In my experience it has been the opposite. US companies are quite liberal about education requirements: lots of experience + no degree, some experience + unrelated degree, STEM degree, or CS degree. My experience (French and German companies), you either have the degree that matches the position or you have an overwhelming amount of experience they can't ignore you. I was turned down many times over not having a CS degree from top US university (majority of Americans go to local state colleges).

[skinnymuch]

Majority of Americans don’t have a degree. Though yeah of the subset that do have degrees, most aren’t going to top ranked schools like you said.

[yardie]

A lot of it comes down to familiarity. Most French companies know of Ivies, Stanford, and MIT. Most Americans couldn’t tell you of a French university beyond La Sorbonne (Paris IV).

In my time there I learned a lot about the difference between university and grand écoles.