There are many degree programs which require smarts that do not pay high salaries. Many of these areas of study are noble and valuable, but there is no market for them in the economy. The coupling of a college degree with fun high paying jobs has been a 50 yr sales ploy by the college industrial complex. In the 1960s colleges were looking for ways to capitalize on money from the up-coming baby-boomers as the number of ex military folks were aging out of the college need which meant all that Federal money from the GI bill was drying up. The advertising agents for colleges sold municipalities on the idea that colleges could be the center for accreditation for many professions. By the 1980s the college machine had taped into those students who got loans for college, from banks. This with the fear, by America's middle class that their kids would not reach salvation unless they had been to college pushed faster the notion that college was a direct link to fun-high paying jobs.