I love the liberal arts, but the idea that everyone needs to study them in order to be a good citizen is overstated at best. It's like saying everyone needs to learn to code to be a good citizen: a pretty thing to say, easy to find people who agree, but it doesn't actually make sense.
Whether we like it or not, college really is career training for most people. And it's ridiculously expensive. College would be a lot less expensive for most people without these arbitrary requirements that serve no real purpose.
I would be interested to know if you think there is any particular subject that everyone needs to know, if you don't think the liberal arts are one of those things.
And I didn't phrase my idea well in the original comment, I don't think everyone needs to study the liberal arts at a college level, but everyone should be familiar with them as a whole by adulthood, no matter how you come across them (autodidactically, etc)
Whether we like it or not, college really is career training for most people. And it's ridiculously expensive. College would be a lot less expensive for most people without these arbitrary requirements that serve no real purpose.