[fmajid]

The English major, as with most humanities, is a Veblen good. It is socially valuable precisely because it is useless, by getting one you are demonstrating your family is so rich you need not trifle with the petty concerns of the hoi polloi like getting a job.

It doesn't help that in the turf battles between university departments, clout comes with enrollment and so they have incentives to exaggerate the career opportunities available to gullible post-grads. We have mandatory nutrition labels on food, it's long past universities were required to give objective numbers on career opportunities and salaries for the various majors.