I don't have an official reference, however my advice to EpicBeardedMan is this.
Go to
this thread on The AES Op Lounge site. Sign up on the site, and on that thread, ask if the academic requirements are any different now than what is listed there by Al Houston (one of the senior AES Ops in the CF) and explain what you've been told at the CFRC.
If nothing has changed, you are likely to be contacted by one of the Senior AES Ops (read CWOs) on the site who will probably want to know what CFRC you are dealing with, and some phone calls may be made to correct the situation. I've seen a similar situation happen where someone trying to get into the MOC was told something not quite correct at a CFRC and one of the other Senior AES Ops intervened with a CFRC and the applicant was able to proceed, but they only knew about it from it being posted on The Lounge.
I don't know where to find the official reference for the education requirements, probably on the Occupation Specs DIN site but I don't have that handy.
I still think the best COA for EBM is to post the question on the AES Op Lounge and go from there, I've seen it work in the past. Maybe CDN Aviator has a better suggestion or can/is working on something on his end, but I'll mention it to the powers that be on my end tomorrow morning as well.