I think that conservatives and liberals have different expectations from education.  And this may explain some of the unhappiness folks feel about it.

I believe conservatives view the purpose of an education being to teach technological skills so as to provide workers for larger corporations.  Any college degree which does not lead to a job is wasted and foolish.  (Of course a job is a good thing.)

I believe liberals are more interested in education teaching a person about the world, appreciating beauty, different cultures, different societies, teaching logic, languages, history.  The focus is a person who can appreciate his own culture as well as others.

There are human beings and human doings.  I think liberals are more concerned with what a person IS, not so much what they DO.   Human beings are more interested in matters such as friendship, respect, trust and love.  Knowing, understanding the wider world can lead to an appreciation of those qualities.

Human doings are interested in having, getting, money, houses, keeping, and people only to the extent they are useful to them.  And once acquired, one is devoted to getting more.  And more.  A technological education is all that is necessary, leading as it can to acquiring stuff.

Therefore, conservatives tend to regard a liberal education as a waste of time and money, the material learned as useless and largely counter-productive.  They are hostile toward the teaching of that which is not needed by industry.

Liberals tend to regard a technological education as a nice thing to have, a good start, but not sufficient.