Do we actually need social “science” and other soft degrees, though? Aren’t these non-rigorous paths the sort of thing people can learn on their own (for free)? How are other nations tackling these sorts of advanced hobbies?
In one model, when the universities negotiate for government funding, one key factor is the number of degrees of various kinds they are expected to produce. That has interesting effects on admissions.
Some fields have highly competitive admissions, because the number of people willing to study them far exceeds the demand for graduates. This may be because the field promises a well-paying high-status job (e.g. law, medicine) or because it is inherently interesting (e.g. social sciences, biology). In other fields, particularly in STEM, admissions can be easy, because the demand exceeds the number of capable and interested students.
They're sort of self-selecting over an extended period of time. While your degree may sound interesting it won't attract too much talent when there are not relevant job openings and every graduate ends up pivoting. Of course, demand does not zero out which is probably a good thing.
The only degrees where this selection mechanism seems to have inverse effects are business management related ones.
Funny enough, my degree was in business management and it was basically useless except for the accounting and economics classes. I eventually pivoted to software dev (self taught).
Just because some fields don't (pretend to) have formalized theories, it doesn't mean the study isn't rigorous.