Then... Community activist work is the Chicago way to get your street creds.
What you say about a master’s degree is generally true. But every school has the option to decide under what conditions and in what way it will award it’s degrees. My parents had friends who were awarded bachelors and masters degrees by colleges and universities without actually completing their degree work, because their studies were interrupted by World War II. My dad was 4F because of a disastrous leg fracture suffered during boyhood. He had to earn his degrees the old fashioned way. I can still find his thesis at the school from which he got his master’s.