I’m an economic history major with a minor in Latin American Studies, which came with learning to express myself by writing a lot of writing of papers. Writing and communicating is an important skillset that a lot of STEM majors simply do not have.
As STEM major back in the day before the "STEM" term was used
, I would agree. One of the benefits of an Ivy League education then, that was not as prevalent in other schools at the time, was the notion of "whatever you major in, it is only going to be a subset of your total education here". So I had to take a year of a language and courses across the history/literature/economics/social sciences disciplines. That developed my writing, reading comprehension, public speaking, and problem analysis skills so that I was often in a situation at work where I was asked to "translate" tech-speak to something the client could understand in terms that made sense to their needs and objectives. That made a huge difference in my career advancement.
Those type of skills are valuable, but colleges try to show the value of them to students in how they can apply in the real world. DW was a professor in the history and languages departments at a couple of colleges. She would attend department meetings where the heads would bemoan the fact that "direct" jobs in those fields (primarily teaching) were being reduced. DW brought up that why don't we sell students on the skills they develop can be useful in business and corporate jobs. The department heads laughed, and said "we don't want to send them to that. Those are 'drone' jobs!". Sometimes the people running the academic departments in colleges cannot see beyond their window to the greater picture.
Back then, I feel college taught one to think and reason regardless of social science or STEM. Now, for non-stem majors in today's world, I am not sure that aspect is as strong.
I can recall in more than one class in college, when a discussion would come up where people had differentiating points of view, the professor would give out the assignment that essentially was "you believe A, come up with a strong argument that defends B". Essentially teaching us to look at all sides of an argument. It is the old "teaching how to think" vs "teaching what to think" issue.
Two other things to ponder:
- There are simply fewer unskilled jobs that pay well. Automation is one big reason. While one can argue more jobs have been created, those jobs likely also require more skills, some of which need some level of college (if even community college).
- There is now world-wide competition for jobs. When I graduated I did not have to worry much about competition from overseas talent. The picture is totally different now. One way people perceive they need to compete and stand out in this era is by getting not just a college degree, but graduate degrees as well.