Wouldn’t it make more sense to give tests to people wanting to enlist and taking those that score over a certain grade, regardless of where they were educated. In fact, IIRC, when I joined the Army in 1959, that is exactly what they did do. Gave us test, a simple one at first to determine if we were smart enough to join and then later more complicated ones, such as the OCS test(which I passed, BTW). It didn’t matter if you had a diploma or not, you still were tested and if you failed, out you went.
That would certainly make more sense!