[mwd_]

There's no correlation

I would guess that there is a very high correlation between CS degrees and programming or problem solving ability. I've worked in a pretty good lab full of grad students and their average skill level was dramatically higher than what you find at an average company (or at least, what I've seen working at half a dozen or so places), let alone what you see from average job applicants. Upon graduation most of these people easily found jobs at places like Google. They didn't get stumped on FizzBuzz because they had spent their time on abstract academic problems without real-world application.

There are definitely some people with CS degrees who cannot code, and you don't want to hire those people. The existence of these exceptions however doesn't mean that degrees aren't a strong positive signal when you are looking to hire somebody competent.

I think there's at least some reactionary bias against formal qualifications in the software industry and in startups. Some of the old professions like law or medicine do go too far the other way, but it's just as wrong to fetishize "real world experience".