Joseph, what I meant by application, is that going into the world you generally encounter more situations which allow for keeping a variety of halachos than sitting all day learning in a beis medrash. So you aren’t losing out on keeping Torah. Someone who isn’t frum doesn’t have the opportunity…
Back to college – many of those professions require extensive training. Commercial airline pilot? Hundreds of hours of flight time, which is expensive. Most commercial airline pilots I’ve met or talked to have gone through the air force where they logged enough hours to qualify.
I think a college degree itself is not a requirement, but some training of sorts is. And a basic command of the english language. I am in no way an expert at all, but I do a lot of technical writing in my field, so I have to be basically competent.