“I mean, you’ve just got to have art classes, Alaska culture, anthropology and all that to be an accountant, right? 🙄“
From the POV of those teaching the courses, it’s necessary so they can continue to eat. IOW, the academic approach to full employment.
As to your basic & most important point, a bachelor’s degree used to be achieved through 120 hours of course work but inflation has struck such that many degree programs are 130-140 hours. The academics will say this confers more necessary knowledge while the rest of us can see it is a clear cash grab.
It is absolutely nothing more than a cash grab. I work with many engineers and every one of them to a person despised all these wasted courses that had absolutely nothing to do with engineering. Waste of time and money.