One of the things I wish more college professors focused on was explaining WHY classes are important.
I have found that my students repeat the same idea: they expect their jobs to prepare them for their work. They believe that when they start a job, the company will give them training and experience. They will start on the bottom and, as they are trained, work their way up. They end up going to college to get the paper with no interest in actually learning. They feel like they will just get the same material in career training later.
And to an extent this is true. Most companies are willing to offer and may require training after hiring you. But companies do not want to spend time & $$ training a college graduate in information they were expected to learn in college. If I am going to educate you myself, why would I pay for a more expensive college graduate? If you say that you have a BA in Finance, companies expect you to at least know what stocks, bonds, derivatives, stockholders, etc. are and how they work. I may train you in how my company does it specifically, but I expect you to know the general theory and vocabulary BEFORE training. I pay a college graduate more because I have to train them LESS. College is to give you the foundations so that the company can train you QUICKLY in the specifics and then you hit the ground running.
Deceptively Blonde 