“You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library”

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.

If you are fortunate to go to a top tier university, many of the non-STEM classes will (hopefully) be taught by Professors who are active contributors to their fields, and use their lectures as a "rough draft" of a future book they will publish. Of what value being at the "cutting edge" of literary theory is up for debate, but there are some things that aren't easily available at your local public library.

Also sometimes it's just cool to have the guy who wrote the textbook be your professor.

Missing:

- 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.

Interestingly, my neighborhood public library in the Outer Richmond district of San Francisco offers free Great Books-style discussion groups. I never attended a session but always noticed the schedule on the bulletin board. Googling it just now, it's apparently led by members of the Great Books Council of San Francisco (https://www.greatbooksncal.org/).

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.

Yeah to be clear I don’t mean to say a liberal arts education is literally only worth $1.50. I personally place immense value on learning.

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.