What's the point in reading books at all? What's your opinion on people who study English?
Reading is a hobby. If you have a naturally inquisitive mind then it can be interesting to read up on a subject that is outside your sphere of knowledge or just a good yarn. In the past year I've read a book on how the metre was developed and measured, a history of the Napoleonic wars, Moby Dick and some Philip K. Dick novels. However, I don't think I'd be happy if all I did was read these books and then write an essay on it, for someone to mark and say "well done". I'd rather be testing hypotheses on how the climate system works, writing peer reviewed papers and feeling that I'm advancing human knowledge.
Some of my best friends studied English at university. It's a soft course, I'm afraid. The workload was minimal, one essay per module per term. This was at Newcastle, supposedly a decent university.
English may teach you analytical skills, but the background knowledge is in something that has no application outside academia. A science degree would also teach you analytical skills but give you background knowledge is something that might actually get you a job at the end of your course.
I know I'm sounding like a condescending prick. I'm not the most eloquent of people (typical scientist, you might say). Studying an arts subject doesn't make you any less intelligent, or have any less worth as a person, just don't be surprised when you can't find a job at the end, or funding for a PhD, or that you have to do a law or journalism conversion course. Or like two of my aforementioned friends who studied English, go back to Uni as an undergrad to study medicine and psychology. The one who studied psychology said "this is so hard, I can't believe the work load!".
Wowbagger: do you think that arts subject PhDs should be funded to the same level as science and engineering PhDs? Surely it should be relative to the number of jobs available after the course has finished.