No one's brain is "broken" here. You're thinking on the individual level, the parent to your comment is looking at it from a societal level. Once someone can r

No one's brain is "broken" here. You're thinking on the individual level, the parent to your comment is looking at it from a societal level. Once someone can read, write, do arithmetic, it's more specialized skills that are needed. There are very few jobs where four years of studying history or political science is necessary. In most cases, a few months of training could do far more than four more years of general education. The value of a degree for most jobs is it shows an ability to learn. Ultimately, having people spend six figures to send this signal is making society worse off. Employers are looking for the qualities that make someone a good student far more than they are looking for experience criticizing ancient works of literature or solving systems of equations.