I am, on this topic as on many, ambivalent. I work in a very specialist career-oriented educational institution which sends many learners on to technical institutes rather than liberal arts colleges (although some to the latter as well), and see the benefits of this type of education highlighed daily. But I also came to my present through a rather circuitous path that traversed liberal arts, STEM, generalist and specialist education.
And although there are many technical specialists in my extended family, there have also been a handful of classicists (some of even more ancient cultures than Greece or Rome).
It seems to me that there are two different goals here regarding liberal arts education versus specialist education: career preparation and educating citizens. On the former, I suspect that what is most effective for obtaining satisfying work that supports one's material needs is constantly changing, but should be open at least somewhat to objective study (i.e., there is probably relevant data out there). On the latter--well, that depends on how we define an educated citizen. If liberal arts education generates mature adults who are able to think objectively and rationally about their own and other's ideas and actions, to take alternate perspectives, to disagree without being disagreeable, and otherwise to engage in civil discourse, then I am onboard. Is the study of the Greek and Roman classics necessary or sufficient for this? That is another question. Are our current liberal arts institutions succeeding in this task? That is yet another question.
And in one of the curious shifts that do occur, I seem to recall that PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) used to refer to someone whose breadth of knowledge and understanding crossed multiple fields in humanities and sciences--a lover of all kinds of knowledge, and usually a teacher. Yet now it almost always is applied to someone who has gone deep into extremely specialized study.
