We often hear about failing math and science literacy, but not nearly as often about historical illiteracy. History, IMO, is equally important to the STEM program. I would rather have political leaders who are well read about, say, how wars have started, than those that can do advanced calculus. In fact, I think a lot of higher education should focus on broadening the curriculum, rather than restricting it, which has been the trend in the last decades. Although a college has to have revenues that meet or exceed costs, we can't think of a degree as a product to be bought in the strict sense of the word. IMO, the really important academic subjects are math, history, philosophy and language. There is a business school around here that proudly advertises "no fluff courses". It makes my skin crawl.
Yikes, I thought the "STEM above all" people were mostly confined to HN and reddit.“You know, we don’t need a lot of anthropologists in this state,” the governor said in October. “I want to spend our dollars giving people science, technology, engineering and math degrees. That’s what our kids need to focus all their time and attention on.”
One of the most pervasive erroneous ideas in this day and age is the false choice between an education in STEM or the Humanities. A well-educated person has made, and continues to make, a genuine effort to understand science, technology, and the liberal arts, and does so from a perspective informed by those that have been and are experts in the field. You can be an educated person in one discipline, but you cannot be a well-educated person unless you have uncommon and useful knowledge in multiple disciplines. A class on Joyce is no less fluff than a class on multi-variable calculus. A well-educated person understands the value of the STEM and the Humanities because he/she has sought to understand them. Someone that does not value either STEM or the Humanities is someone that does not have uncommon and useful knowledge in one of them.