You need to evaluate this from several perspectives and then make your choice.
First how is the company you work for likely to respond if the person does not have the qualifications they want. Some companies are more likely to waive qualifications than others and some qualifications are more important to stick to than others. So first pretend this person is not your friend and look realistically at whether his qualifications are close enough that he would even be considered. If you know they won't waive that college degree, it is not fair to him to get his hopes up.
Next you have to consider your own reputation in your current company. If you recommend someone who is not remotely qualifed, it reflects on your judgement. If you recommend someone who is close to being qualified and they take your word for it and hire him and he doesn't work out, then it calls your judgement into question which is virtually never a good idea in the workplace. You are not likely to lose your job over this, but you don't want your boss to lose confidence in you either. So you need to evaluate the potential risk to your own reputation when you think about recommending someone. This is basically a risk analysis and you need to determine if this is a risk you want to take or not. I had to tell my boyfriend's sister I would not recommend her for a job she really wanted because she was an alcoholic and couldn't be depended on to even show up for work. I can't risk my own career on that! This particular situation doesn't sound that risky by any means, but you need to evaluate the risk. A good friend would not want you to put your own career at risk to help him. And if he doesn't work out, both of you lose and your friendship is usually strained too.
You may also need to consider if you actually want to work with this person on a daily basis. Some people prefer not to have close friends or relatives work with them daily as it can cause conflict in the primary relationship. For instance, he is going to be QA and you are a dev. He could, in doing his job well, have to point out mistakes you made, sometimes serious ones. Would that strain your relationship or can you and he both separate professional disagreements from personal relationships. Would it be possible he would hide problems he found so as not to make you look bad? Some people can compartmentalize and some cannot. Putting your friend into an adversarial postion where your work might be criticised can be risky.
Next you have to look at your relationship with your friend. How will he react if you don't recommend him (or will he even know) and how will he react if you recommend him but he doesn't get the job. Is this something that might strain your relationship? Would your friend be better served if you tell him that he needs to get the qualifications for the positions he would like to have rather than get his hopes up recommending him to a job he may not be likely to get? And frankly would he even be interested in this job?
It takes a certain mind-set to do QA and some people would rather slit their throats than do it and others would thrive. Does he even know what this type of job would entail to be able to determine if it would be for him? You may need to think about his personality as well as his technical qualifications before recommending him. It will do your friendship no favors if you end up getting him a new job he hates.
Note I am not saying you should recommend your friend or that you should not. Only you can determine this becasue we don't know him or you or your company and the details of what they actually need. All I am doing is giving you things to consider when making that choice.
