Liberal Arts is a luxury that many cultures cannot afford. When you're just starting out or trying to survive as a culture, you need engineers, hard-core scientists and business people. Take China and Israel for example. The upper class can go for Liberal Arts at any time, but the culture as a whole will lean strongly to hard science until they're established enough to enjoy that luxury. Times are bad now (but getting better) and soft majors are not wanted, but when times are good again, they'll be more jobs for the softies to fill.
This is a most unenlightened point of view. Music, art, story telling have been part of human cultures for thousands of years. One of the finest aspects of being human is enjoying these things. Literature, art, and music are always needed. They make life worth living.
Some societies don't have the money to make these things available to everyone. That's a shame. The U.S. and EU are societies that can afford to make these things available to everyone.
Why downvote me when you agree with my original post. You yourself say that "soft majors are not wanted". Indeed, they aren't wanted but they are needed and it's a shame that they aren't wanted. There's a reason dictatorial governments always control the arts, music, and literature. They fear the ideas, the progress that these things bring to a country.
I've not down voted you. It's a matter of survival. I sleep on the ground under a tree until I get a sleeping bag, and then maybe a cot. Before I buy a nice soft comfy mattress, I need a safe, secure structure for it.
Think of the liberal arts in this way. Once we have what we must have to survive, then we can go after the things we want as humans to enrich our lives and those around us. I love art and English majors... I just can't enjoy Rembrandt when I need a place to live or clean water to drink or a sewage system, etc :)
