Actually education is a rather significant factor if you are delving into working for a large recognized 'alpha' company. And not just an undergrad education but a masters of some sort (and at times even a doctorate). Moreover it would be seriously helpful if it stemmed from an uber university .....either that or the person has stellar grades.
Troy was perfect for the job. In my opinion he is the closest to Trump in terms of overall drive, and when it boils down to being an entrepreneur he is the very quintessence of the word itself! And the fact that he 'only' has a college education should, in my opinion, be a plus for him.
However the objective of the 'game' is to head one of Trump's firms. Sadly in high finance certain positions basically have restrictions, and the biggest one of all is you have to have oomph! Saying you have a high school degree only really deflates one's sails.
Now, there are a myriad of entrepreneurs who have made it large without a university degree. Infact if you take away the Walton family I believe the remaining US top ten richest (apart from Buffet) do not have university degrees (although most now have honorary degrees .....but if you look at actual graduation nope). In fact i remember an interesting speech Larry Ellison gave at the Yale graduation where he said that those who are graduating will get a nice 6 figure income, but there checks will be cut by their comrades who dropped out of school and now own the businesses. A college degree means squat ....if you start your own enterprise. However if you plan on working for someone else then get an undergrad (and either get it from an uber university and/or get stellar grades), AND then get an MBA, and think about a doctorate. There are exceptions, but that is a pretty hard and fast rule.
Again, i think Troy should have won the whole game. But in the end what destroyed him was the fact that although Troy was better than Kwame he lacked a college degree of any sort while Kwame was a Harvard MBA. In FR that might not mean a lot but in the real world it carries enough weight to make the difference between a person being a CEO or being a highly paid upper ranking executive who is not the CEO.
Troy lost the chance of winning the Apprentice over a decade ago. The moment he graduated from highschool. However i have no worries about him. The guy will amount to much.
And about college degrees ..... Trump virtually worships Wharton school of business, and consequently has a healthy respect for Harvard school of business (Wharton's less-than-subtle rival), and guess where Kwame went to school? Troy had no chance going in with Kwame, yet at the same time if he went with Bill he would have gotten heat for sending his pal Kwame to safety. It was a lose/lose situation for Troy, although i think he would have stood a better chance against Bill. Sure, he would have gotten serious heat for standing up for his pal again, but his chances would have been better.