> good degrees teach independence, critical thinking (analysis, synthesis), research skills, writing, teamworking, presentation skills, and much more.
Sadly there aren't a lot of those. Most degrees teach regurgitating what a textbook says in a fancy way that means you pass the "I understood it" test.
I was an Econ major in college, which is one of the most popular majors across all schools in the US. I don't remember even having a textbook beyond the first couple of statistics courses. We were only ever graded on problem sets or term papers with some kind of statistical analysis component.
That said, my American Economic History course was easily one of the most eye-opening learning experiences, and absolutely one of those courses where "I understood the reading" was necessary. It greatly expanded by ability to understand why the economic story played out the way it did, and how much of it was based on the societal and political context of the times, and not on the findings of bean counters doing stat analyses.
My middle of the road state school CS program was nothing like that. I can remember exactly 1 CS class where memorizing the text book was remotely useful.
Sadly there aren't a lot of those. Most degrees teach regurgitating what a textbook says in a fancy way that means you pass the "I understood it" test.