Because 1) humanities grads must learn on the job, the skills that are taught in STEM fields- and eventually do 2) must ‘unlearn’ what they were taught was false – and eventually do 3) and the net difference is that non-STEM education cost was a LOSS, and STEM students earned it. There is never, ever a comparison between a conversation with a physicist, engineer, or economist that is vapid as someone in the humanities. It is however, more pleasant going through life in secular theology of the humanities, just as more blissful in supernatural theology.
Very few people (relatively) get stem degrees. The disturbing reality is that despite the vast number of people put thru higher education the number of top talent, the marginal difference in theory, and innovations hasn’t increased since 63. Lower return on ed vs reproduction. So what’s ‘wrong’?
The measure of any discipline is (a) reproducibility of research (b) survivability of claims and skills in time (c) demonstrated evidence of resulting productivity (d) improvement or decline in competency per person (e) non- substitutability by apprenticeship.
So? How many disciplines dont fail? Better yet, what if Universities and professors had to warranty students for occupational fitness upon award of degree or return the educational funds to students? What would happen is that we would drop back to 10-12% of population.
All of this is common knowledge in economics. All we have done is dumb down high school degrees, eliminate cheap vocational(manual) and junior(clerical-medical) training, in exchange for impoverishing parents in old age, delaying homeownership, and gutting reproduction.
Gutting reproduction while causing declining productivity generates demand for immigration to pay for medical and retirement costs of people who were deprived of children and consequential consumption, causing a continuous reduction in the competitiveness of the economy.
And that’s BEFORE we talk about the fact that colleges are teaching a secular religion of false promise of freedom from the laws of the universe: marxism-postmodernism-pc/woke – that is marching through the institutions of cultural production and maintenance. Why? to feed higher ed.
And if you were skilled in physics, economics, cognitive science, and not yourself indoctrinated into the social construction of false promises of freedom from the laws of the universe you would know this. But your keep perpetuating these lies like a priesthood justifying faith.