Chiefs who consider requiring their officers to have degrees may wonder how their agency would benefit from the increased educational requirements. They also wonder if their department’s recruiting can survive changing the requirements.

The major myth about raising educational requirements is that it increases the difficulty of recruiting minority officers. The Arlington, Texas, Police Department (APD), serving a city with a population of around 360,000, has proven by its recruiting success that departments can-and should-require their police officers to have degrees.