Hmm ...

... Are Too Many People Going to College?

... the core knowledge transcends one’s own country. Not to recognize Falstaff, Apollo, the Sistine Chapel, the Inquisition, the twenty-third Psalm, or Mozart signifies cultural illiteracy about the West. Not to recognize the solar system, the Big Bang, natural selection, relativity, or the periodic table is to be scientifically illiterate.

But it isn't enough to be merely literate in these matters. It helps to have some actual understanding of them. Most people's knowledge of the Inquisition is actually pretty poor. And while most people may recognize Mozart's name, how many would recognize his "Ave Verum Corpus"? If colleges ceased being places to go to improve your job prospects, they might revert to be places you go in order to be educated.
The definitive discussion of this is Albert Jay Nock's The System of Education in the United States, which someone should reprint.
Here, by the way, is Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus":