So if someone's super passionate about art history and is also able to meet the (presumably) more stringent entry criteria, they will still be able to get that degree.
And the free program should be based on Merit, and career demand.
Who chooses what defines "Merit"?
If you get accepted to their program, it's free for you.
Accreditation means auditing to standards and performance.
Why? Surely part of the 'charm' of University is to get chance to study thing you know nothing about just to see if that happens to be your thing, plus studying things just because you enjoy it.
Sure we probably shouldn't encourage too many people to get art history degrees, but why not let people take some art history courses just because they find the topic fascinating?
Roughly, I think we should think in terms of Trade Schools and Liberal Arts programs.
I'm a huge fan of Liberal Arts programs, but I don't think they should be a pre-requisite for a STEM career. They also shouldn't be a pre-requisite for many jobs that people have today.
We should all be much more in favor of Mentoring. Maybe Corporations should receive tax benefits for being good Mentors.
But not a pre-req for day one, earning a salary.
Hell, let's make some Continuing Education demands on STEM.
Accepting a pull request (code reviews) should require training.
Launching code requires even more training.
Now I will agree that somebody getting an art history type degree shouldn't be taking loans to get it, they should be paying for it out of their pocket. However we should not limit somebody from pursuing their interests just because their interests are not valuable to society.