Curious, my background is in a fairly similar area to you, I've worked as a developer for investment banks and financial tech firms. Generally I get the feeling that if a candidate is at an associate or higher level then work experience is more important.

From my experience (and I suspect most developers would agree) real world development experience is a much better indicator of performance than university.

Are the candidates you normally field changing sectors ? - in the case that a candidate doesn't have industry experience I can see why a company might want to see educational background first, but it seems strange that a company would care more about educational level than directly relevant experience.