[sunshinelackof]

What qualifies a degree as an "undesirable pile of shit?" Studying English is not at all useless. It definitely provides value to our society and produces people with useful skills applicable across disciplines. Being burdened with student loans pigeon holes great minds into safe jobs that don't make use of their skills.

[bufferoverflow]

It's quite simple - if you can't pay off your student debt with the skills you paid for, it's generally undesirable by outside world.

Whether English or history is somewhat useful is irrelevant - pretty much any area of knowledge is. They clearly are not in high demand.