I guess you were lucky. I didn't go to college in the US. From what I understand, in America people see college as a place to "experiment, open your mind, find yourself" and all these things. My experience in Europe was "go to college because you want to become something - nurse, scientist, comedian, etc - and a college degree is the best way to get it". You don't go to college to find out what you want to do, you go to college because what you want to do is best done if you learn how to do it in college.

So yes, it's easy to criticize other people's choice in terms of useless degrees.

To be fair, you admit here that you inherited certain social values about college that others did not. That in and of itself is a big factor here. In that sense, it's also fair to say things like "college advisers and counselors failed to serve most students because they get paid to counsel students on productive and fulfilling career directions and are giving students bad advice."

The same thing applies to us here... I went to college to become a software engineer/computer scientist. I didn't go to find out what I want to do. I knew what I wanted to do.