“Ironically, the humanities used to be hard grading. There was a time before WWII when many Latin or history programs had standards that were just as rigorous as those in the sciences”…I think this is correct. What seems to be happening is that all subjects are being converted into “social studies”–more rapidly for the traditional humanities, more slowly for the hard sciences.

The truth is that there are many jobs and grad schools (especially med schools and law schools) which prefer to take students with bad degrees and inflated A’s over bright engineers with too many C’s on the transcript. This is a well-known and well-studied effect that leads to still more grade inflation. [For example, MIT grads have a harder time getting into med school than Yale grads despite having on the average higher test scores and having gone through a more rigorous science curriculum, all else being equal. Only their grade point averages are different.]

Until companies regularly say — We would rather take the high GRE, C student in chemical engineering from Wonka Tech over the straight A sociology and Amazon studies major from Bozo U, the tough grading, honest curricula of tech subjects — which includes math, stats, math econ programs, and the natural sciences, there will always be a tendency of the lazy or the ambitious to go for the easiest A compatible with success.

Ironically, the humanities used to be hard grading. There was a time before WWII when many Latin or history programs had standards that were just as rigorous as those in the sciences. But since the 60s, the idea of flunking people and giving out C’s to those who can’t write well in English seems to have faded away.

IMO, sometime in the late nineteenth century, the academics who had thought themselves superior found the industrial magnates surpassing them in wealth and status. Thus, virtue had to be defined as being directly proportional to accumulated classroom seat time. But most people don’t want to be poor while being virtuous, so it has been an article of faith that college grads earn more than high school grads. This may be true, but it might not be if the high school grads were divided into two classes, one which had the self-discipline, limited as it is, to finish college although they didn’t, and those who didn’t. The self-discipline strikes me as the differentiating factor. Intelligence, as well, and people skills.

Some time back, in a journal for Armor officers, I read of a training program an armored cavalry regiment put together for duty in the Balkans. One test was an armored personnel carrier tasked to clear a road for a humanitarian convoy comes to a road block. No telling which side, of several, the guys are from. Could be from the black marketers’ enforcement group. If the humanitarian aid gets through, black market prices go down. But, while trying to get the guys to clear the road, the US vehicle is engaged from the flank by a machine gun. Can’t tell who’s behind the MG. Firing at the road block? The US? Drunks who found a machine gun?
The objective. Clear the road, destroy the machine gun, don’t get any US soldiers killed. Don’t commit war crimes.
For extra pizzaz, there is a pretend-butthead from the BNN (Blackhorse News Network) who is always trying to provoke stuff along for the ride.
The guy in charge of the vehicle would be a mid-level NCO, whose college, if any, is a matter of courses here and there, bits and pieces.
Sure like to see the academic elites handle that one.

That said, some version of liberal arts–not the marxist post modernist type–makes for a better citizen. But that could be done if high school. More history, for example.

I can’t fault parents complaining about the cost of education, my 4 years from 1970-74 cost me all of 8K. Had a Pell grant, partial scholarship, and made about 1500 a summer working in the mills. Remember them? Didn’t owe a dime upon graduation. Eight thousand is probably what books cost these days.

As to the easy major, in my fraternity we called Engineering Pre-Business.

That’s one reason. The other is the same reason community colleges are routinely maligned by those in the academia: they are elitist snobs who dislike poor people.

Here is the test of an easy major. How many people quit engineering to major in history, political science, or business? How many people quit majoring in history to major in chemical engineering? very, very few.

If you want to find an easy major, just look at the GPA expected to get into graduate school. An engineer can probably get in with a 3.0 or less. I doubt you could do that is Psych or political science.