But does that make it valuable enough to justify the cost? I dunno. Ask Ken Ilgunas.
Of course this isn't the case for the vast majority of liberal arts graduates.
The statistics definitely don't play out in a vacuum... His kind of determinism holds far more bearing on his successes (financial or otherwise) than any degree (liberal arts or otherwise) ever could alone.
Also, don't ever forget the power of defining your own terms for success. I mean, it's pretty hard to fail when you're successful by definition. Although sadly it's nowhere near as easy to do as it sounds...
Or to be a bit less of a dick, I think this is a cross between the ancient philosophical question, "how does one know anything to be true?" and the cliché, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." It only holds this kind of value to an individual if the individual thinks it does. [Edit: And just to avoid the bigger philosophical question let's just say that the individual is or isn't confident that it holds this value, not that they know that it does or doesn't. ;-)]
Either way, there's always the risk that you aren't getting what you pay for.
To put my point differently, this is an example of a market which trades extrinsic value for intrinsic value. Sure, some mechanisms are certainly better than others for this purpose, but as is the nature of intrinsic value, "better" can only be defined on a very individual basis.