It is worth noting that most of liberal arts education is fantastically cheap compared to many STEM degrees, especially medicine. Whenever you need a laboratory, a hospital.. it gets much more expensive than anything a liberal arts teacher can come up with.

I think it is a uniquely American perspective to automatically assume that worthy (or even just prestigious) education somehow has to cost at least 200k USD financed through life-altering, non-defaultable student loan contracts.

I do understand that the money is not just drained. Whenever I was on an American campus as a student, I was in awe at their extravagant setups. Lots of food, an irritating amount of sports, more like a small resort town than a place to do educational work.

No wonder there is only a very small fraction of the population who would choose to study humanities in such a system. But it says much more about the system than about the humanities or liberal arts.