Why do employers keep putting so much value on something so worthless? There must be cheaper ways to demonstrate to employers you have something equivalent to whatever it is they think they're getting from any old 4 year degree.
Which isn't to say that the issue is unsolvable. But it still needs solving. I don't think anyone has paid much attention to it.
If you are selling a product to a government or a big enterprise, it helps to have a lot of people with impressive credentials in your staff.
As a hypothetical, let's say that most jobs require a degree. Let's say that you use 50% of the stuff in your English Major throughout most of your career; you've eaten a 50% inefficiency on your college investment(essentially doubling the "price/skills" of your degree), you've lost time that you could have invested in obtaining those skills. Further, you are pressured into demanding a higher salary because of your college investment, which isn't matched by the skills you've received; so either your employer carries the burden of your inefficient education, or you do.
This is usually decided by the power dynamic between the two, and if you're a broke college student desperate for a job, you don't have much bargaining power, so you're shouldering all the burden. The worst part is, there's no way for you to fix this - there's no 2-year program that is 100% aimed towards your career goal, and there's no entry-level job for you to start at 0%(you're probably already starting at the entry-level even with your 50% degree). So you're stuck making this investment whether you want to or not.
One way to look at university is insurance - you're learning all these extra things as an insurance that you'll have a baseline of skills if you change your career. The issue is, not everyone can afford such an expensive insurance, but most people are forced to take it under our hypothetical.
Bryan Caplan has a book coming out soon on the signalling model of education here's notes from a course he teaches http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/e496.html