These kids then sulk and bemoan society while they work at a coffee dhop that affords them higher pay than the degree they studied for affords them.
I have a really hard time believing Columbia made a credible argument that you can make a good salary in film.
Majors in high demand and good with prospects can have guarantees. These can be re-evaluated periodically to adjust to demand.
If everyone with a psych major switched to comp sci tomorrow one of two things would happen.
1) we’d have more engineers than we’d know what to do with - wages would collapse and companies would stop trying to conserve engineering time. Innovation would slow and we’d head back towards the days of J2EE etc.
2) universities would create fake versions of the majors that are guaranteed, but easy to pass and unlikely to lead to employment.
Many of these students would rationally believe that studying “film” would lead to a shot in the film industry.
https://arts.columbia.edu/programs-study/ma-film-and-media-s...
It does say: A few Teaching Assistantships are available. Student Service positions employ students as Programming Assistants and Research Assistants.