College Majors: Popular vs. Practical?

To start out I am attending college myself and aspire to graduate some day.That being said, I attended a couple college graduations last year (1 specifically at the University of Minnesota) I noticed a trend, per se, that shocked me, and at the same time didn't. I sat through the names of at least 1,000 graduates, at this one particular ceremony out of several held by the liberal arts school that spring, and noticed something odd.

What I found odd is that at least 80-90% of the degrees that these graduates were getting were the same. Out of the 20+ or so degrees that you could choose from at the liberal arts college of the U of M, the vast majority chose a communications/strategic communications degree. Out of all the departments, which have various degrees within each, such as Anthropology, Economics, Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies, Geography, Global Studies, Journalism & Mass Communication, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, most chose to major in communications. Every now and then there would be something really specific like women's studies or something else, or someone that double majored in communications and a world language, but all in all there was little diversity over the entire graduating class.

Is this a trend or does this happen everywhere? I chose to study a very specific major (I/TT; computer science) and have noticed the same thing (several people studying the same major) when I enrolled.

What is the intrigue of getting one of the slightly vague "McMajors" like communications. Why would somebody spend 4+ years in college to get a piece of paper that says they know how to speak and communicate?