[philk]

I can think of a couple of changes that would make this sort of thing much rarer:

a) Force universities to publish[1] data on average graduate salaries after graduation. That way noone can delude themselves that a $100K major in Cultural Studies is going to be anything other than a financial disaster.

b) Stop subsidising college loans. If not for the explicit and implicit[2] subsidies then no lender would have been willing to provide so much money for a Religious/Women's Studies degree.

[1] And by publish I mean, actually make clear to people who apply or consider applying for these degrees.

[2] For example, the fact that it's unusually hard to discharge student loan debts through bankruptcy.

[potatolicious]

a) Don't forget job market growth rates vs. graduates matriculated nation-wide. That's as important as starting salary - there are a great many fields, particularly in the humanities, where the pay isn't half bad, but you're competing with a horde of fellow graduates for preciously few positions.

[earl]

While I think that subsidizing student loans is probably a good thing for the government to do in order to help create a more educated and hopefully more productive populance, I think that schools should be forced to publish stats on how much students make by major 1,2,5, and 10 years postgraduation. I think it would be eye opening. I also think that many universities are essentially in the business of selling defective products, if you consider (as I think the vast majority of people do) the point of college to be job training. I have friends who've gotten degrees in eg environmental studies and the university did not go out of their way to make clear how difficult it would be to get a job.