Does it cost too much to be an educated person?

The Chronicle of Higher Education publishes both Higher Ed news and Opinion.  There's a debate brewing about how the value of a college degree is lessening.  With the cost of education rising (despite some folks arguing that the net tuition rate is lower due to the cost differential lowering.  I need to see more data before I concede that point), and the emphasis more and more being placed on the economic viability of an education, it would seem that for those students and family for whom college is a huge economic stretch, the school that can get you the job is the best school.

This begs the question, is it only the wealthy who can get a well rounded education?  Can only those who can afford to pay for a liberal arts degree with no direct economic advantage (other than the ability to expose young minds to the arts and sciences and critical thinking, and great ideas) get this kind of education?

Because as I dig into music and theatre conservatories and their curriculum, and how there is very little room for the liberal arts, I wonder are they just artistic trade schools?  And if they are, are they really doing a better job of educating our future artists for the world they will actually enter, and not the world artistic academia WISHES for (or is so out of date with, that they are educating students for a past reality), than their counterparts at universities with a stronger liberal arts core?

So do conservatories REALLY turn out more employable artists?