This falls back to the discussion on what the role of a University education is. Personally I fundamentally disagree that Universities should be relegated to glorified career training and certification bodies. Why should universities deal with certifying that someone is "fit to enter the electrical engineering field as a working professional". Couldn't that be done cheaper and faster by some sort of professional society of electrical engineers?

A degree should be seen as a certification of knowledge, not a certification you are qualified to work in a certain field. There is nothing inherently wrong with going to university for love of learning and knowledge without focusing on what job it will lead to.

But you could easily never take a class or read a book on religion and go on to become an excellent businessman, scientist, engineer, inventor, programmer, musician, etc. And still read or talk or think about religion, in your free time, whenever you felt like it. And again, for free.

You can replace "religion" in the above statement with just about any other university subject and the statement will still be true. I'm not arguing that religion is necessary or important for everyone to study, just that it is a valid field of academic inquiry and study and as such very much belongs in a university setting.