Maybe a better system in modern times would be a combination of mentoring with official recommendations and travel (to broaden horizons).
Those classes covered things which I have never encountered in my _trade_, but which formatively affected my views on how one should treat others (or treat oneself). I feel like the stereotypical "liberal arts" education, in which one studies things that are not just focused on your trade, has an intrinsic value which is hard to articulate.
Of course not everyone is autodidactic so the path is not for everyone, but it is indeed quite possible to acquire this kind of knowledge/humanity outside of the university structure.
Alternatively: everyone should read the classics.
Also sometimes it's just cool to have the guy who wrote the textbook be your professor.
- Someone who knows those books to explain and lead discussions about them.
- A place to hold those meetings.
- Some kind of accountability for actually doing the readings, writing the papers, and internalizing some understanding.
That costs a little more than $1.50 but it has no right to cost $150k. It's not like graduate student wages are expensive.
When my children get old enough I hope to attend with them. I had the great fortune to experience a Great Books program for 2-3 years in high school (a pet project of a teacher who fought tooth and nail to fund that class) and consider it a formative experience.
Just to point out that much like working at a high level in tech, a degree is actually not a hard pre-requisite to having an understanding of the humanities, ethics, etc.
Also just like STEM, many will absolutely benefit from the structure of a university setting.
I just couldn’t resist the Good Will Hunting quote.
I think when you send "everyone" to college, it's going to be no different for them than high school was for "everyone" (and for the smart kids in their less-special subjects): chug through the tedium with as little of your brain as possible, while away the hours and the months until you get to something you actually care about. That's a reasonable way to warehouse teenagers while their parents are at work, but 18-22 year olds could plausibly be doing something else.
What year did that right begin?
Of course, it doesn't follow that they have a right to be considered researchers or publish papers afterwards, and the plethora of bad research may be a real problem. However, it should be noted that academic pseudosciences are not a new phenomenon, and they have sometimes been much more destructive than some of today's examples. Race science, phrenology, medicine in the time of bloodletting and others have been respected academic pursuits created by elites, not the result of anything like over-education.