The question then becomes, how much is someone willing to pay and/or go in debt for to become a well-rounded intelligent person? The fact is that few if any go to college for that reason.
Several years ago, when I was still the middle of my bachelor's degree in economics, we had a discussion about this issue during an econometrics course with the professor. The discussion started over problems that arose because the union covering student who worked at the university placed absurd demands on the administration and basically lumped all auxilary teaching and grading duties right into the hands of professors. To be clear, the demands really were absurd. For example, save for the business school, all faculties were loosing students each semester. Yet, one of the demands was a guarantee of hours which essentially means asking the administration to find work to students when less work is needed and less revenues are comming in. There was also a dispute among professors because their own union refused to pressure the union of supporting staff and working students. In the midst of all that nonsense, the dean of the business school said in public he was thinking of separating the business school from the university. And this is where the discussion started in class.
But, that was not the only complaint he had to make. He also pointed out that students in the business school aren't interested in politicizing their campus and almost always reject proposals to go on a strike. I think it was way back in 2012, all universities went on a semester long strike. When that happened, students in the business school voted to take one afternoon off, in solidarity and resumed their studies immediately thereafter. Just to be clear, program-specific and faculty-wide student associations are the ones that have the power to vote for a strike, but they do not have the power to force a strike outside of their domain of activity. In other words, if the undergraduate economics student association votes for a strike, bachelor-level courses in economics are canceled until further notice. Radicals love to talk about democracy, except when people disagree with them. So, unsurprisingly, they disrupted many courses throughout the semester.
I don't think you realize the difference in attitude and goals between someone who studies in a business school versus someone who studies in the humanities and social sciences. People who study in business school are there to get a job. They study management science, information technologies, accounting, marketing, finance, etc. with the explicit purpose of getting a job that is tightly related to their field of study -- or, to get an MBA or a master's in a related field to then, you guessed it, get a job in their field. There is such a huge contrast between these people and people from other faculties... you have to see it to understand how deep the division is. The economics department is sort of on the fence, although people who study economics tend to also mean business: they study it to become economists. In Canada, that means at least a master's degree and, unsurprisingly, people often do both right at that same place and then apply for junior positions.
Now, if you get outside of this universe, things are very, very different. Students in philosophy aren't there for a job. Students in the arts aren't there for a job. Students in political science aren't there for a job. Although you'd be surprised at how interested banks can be at people who can look into geopolitical risks, it doesn't matter because most of those kids are so radical they would spit on the offer right away. A lot of people do go to university to acquire general knowledge.
