I think the classic ideal of a liberal arts degree is awesome... as a second or mid-life degree. The option to read and think in-depth and breadth seems to have more potential once you've lived a little more than the average 18-yr-old, just because you tend to have more experiences and viewpoints than a high school grad heading to uni.
On the other hand, by that point, you'll have a bunch of habits and ways of thinking hardwired that you did not choose for yourself. It also becomes something of a Sapir-Worf dilemma, where it becomes very difficult to even realize one's thinking has been shaped in this way.
My experience of interacting with older, more stable 'intellectuals' who do not have a broad background of reading is an acquired indolence towards foreign ideas and older ideas, subsisting on a shallow 'tolerance' as a sign of their broad mindedness.
