How would humanities, arts, pure reasearch and the like survive in this model?
How can a school charge the same amount of tuition, per unit, for different fields that pay substantially, sometimes orders of magnitude, different over the lifetime.
For example: MBAs, JDs, Medical fields' tuition is much higher. Why is that not the case across the board?
Note, many/most people in software engineering have other interests. But they have not made a career out if it. So, if humanities interests someone, it can be a perfectly good hobby for many, till demand and supply evens up that leads to rise in salaries.
If student preferences were different we could easily be bemoaning low value engineering majors, doctors or lawyers.
If student preferences are disconnected from long term utility then it's unlikely for University costs to normalize on utility. Increasing the costs for high utility majors would result in yet higher prices for those with the majors skills - decreasing prices for low utility majors will simply lower income potential in those majors.