It depends on who gets to define "meaningful". There are a lot of things that I think are meaningful that you probably don't. And while many would say that STEM automatically qualifies, I don't think that really holds up to scrutiny.
I think it’s quite easy to decide. If the students at the end of the study can contribute to the society as tax payers to fund the next generation, then what they have studied is meaningful. It doesn’t have to be STEM necessarily.
