If it’s your own money, college can be whatever you want. When it’s someone else’s, they get to be involved in making a decision as to what college is for.
The problem is that the electorate tends to not understand the concept of second-order effects. For example, a college graduate in the arts might, directly or indirectly, generate more economic activity than someone without a college degree, regardless of the difference in income level of people in those two buckets.