Would it really matter to a company whether I had a degree which included those classes or if I had certificates saying the same thing?
You do not exist in a vacuum.
When pruning the stacks of resumes, employers can make several quick stacks: Those with industry experience, those with a degree and demos, and... that's usually enough to fill the job.
In some regions of the world the degree is less required, but in the US at least, most game studios are located in well-educated areas where there are plenty of people who are ambitious, and have degrees, and have their own portfolio of cool stuff.
It isn't about you, it is that there are many qualified people who want jobs, and who go that route to get in to the industry. There are other routes, getting to know the right people and networking your way into a job. It is more effective and efficient, IF you really do have the skills.
I also note that you talk about "game design" and you talk about "programming" and "computer science". The two are different, hopefully you already know that. Read the forum FAQs if you don't.
Generations At Work, or Macroeconomics, or Logic classes that I'm required to take. I can understand how any and all of my computer related course are going to help, but not any of those non computer related courses. It's kind of like how you have to take chemistry in high school.Is it ever going to come up in normal life? Probably not. That's kind of how I feel about these other required classes I have to take in relation to a career in gaming.
Games are one of those odd industries where it helps to know about EVERYTHING.
More of this is also covered in the Forum FAQ and Tom Sloper's site.
There is no subject not worth knowing. For example, world religions may seem useless at first, but if you want to build a game for the world to enjoy, you've got to know background. And if you want to tell stories, knowing the stories helps. Psychology should be helpful for obvious reasons.
For those you listed, "Generations At Work" sounds like it is a course about understanding different ages of people. Just like your game designs need to be applicable to all ages and demographics. Sounds useful. Macroeconomics is quite useful in games, nearly all games have their own economies that need to be crafted and then carefully balanced; if you don't understand macroeconomics it may be quite a bit more difficult to build this world. And somehow you feel that a logic course wouldn't be applicable in games... What are games but an implementation of a set of logic rules?
Which also leads to:
The latter seems more efficient, less costly, and less time consuming.
If you are in a program of study, talk to your advisers. Generally they understand that you don't want to be in school forever. Often you can get academic credit for real life experiences, and you can test out of courses, and assuming you are polite and charismatic, you can probably convince your advisers to swap out courses you don't like with alternate courses you do.
Talk to them and establish a rapport, talk with them about your degree program, and see what you can work out. Many people develop their own custom study programs as long as they satisfy the school's general requirements. Many schools have an option to craft your own specialty degree, even though it frequently comes with a title of "general studies". Even within your existing program you can probably customize it, and that means getting some topics in a range of fields (general education) but if you have real life experience this can frequently be satisfied by testing out of the courses. Otherwise if your department is looking for a topic, you might consider swapping out with a different economics course, although in this case that course would likely help your design career goals.
Sometimes the best course through life is not the most efficient shortest path. Much can be learned along the way.