Those are fine and exceptionally useful skills in combination with others, but on their own do not offer many opportunities. Someone whose only skill is fluency in a foreign language is limited to working as a translator; someone whose only skill is writing is pretty much limited to working as, unsurprisingly, a writer. I'm not saying that either field is unimportant but they're extremely competitive fields with a high ratio of qualified candidates to good-paying jobs.

In contrast, someone with a scientific or engineering degree and fluency in a foreign language or the ability to write well, has a very good chance of never being out of demand.

The problem isn't with liberal arts skills, it's with students who pursue them to the exclusion of -- rather than in addition to -- more practical curricula that are actually desired by employers.