I think it'd be a great idea for the market to send you signals that paying $50k for an art history degree is probably a terrible idea.
That's a hard question. It gets into the much larger matter of whether the market is a good arbiter of what has social and cultural value, or whether the government needs to step in and subsidise certain things because it really does know better than the wisdom of the masses, who will always prefer Cheetos and ballgames to polenta and Shakespeare.
I'm no libertarian: there are definitely plenty of cases of market failure, where the market fails to provide enough of goods with positive societal and cultural externalities. Art history might even be one of them.
But, as pc2g4d notes, the right way to deal with that is for the government to directly stimulate demand for art history. Not to give cheap loans for students to study art history and then live the rest of their lives in debt.
Personally, I don't buy that the world needs more music and film majors. We seem to have far more music and film than we need already. I can understand why economically irrational young people might think it's fun to spend 4 years watching films, but I don't think we should be subsidizing that choice.
the right way to deal with that is for the government to directly stimulate demand for art history. Not to give cheap loans for students to study art history and then live the rest of their lives in debt.
I would certainly concur with that. I think we're in agreement.
> the government needs to step in and subsidise certain things
It does — but in the right place. Pay a lot to librarians, professors and historians, and then they'll be able to pay commercial rates for their education and banks will offer better loan terms.
That's a hard question. It gets into the much larger matter of whether the market is a good arbiter of what has social and cultural value, or whether the government needs to step in and subsidise certain things because it really does know better than the wisdom of the masses, who will always prefer Cheetos and ballgames to polenta and Shakespeare.