My empiric opinion is that it's very common among millennials to 'follow their passion'. 'Weakness' that is exploited by business people when negotiating salaries. Mix it with post-scarcity economics and globalization and the phenomenon is explained.
I agree. Older generations made emotional promises that made sense in that moment of History - 'graduate from a good college and the world is yours' - forgetting that there are ever changing dynamics that easily refute that judgement: e.g. supply and demand. You don't earn a good sallary because you know a lot, you earn a good sallary because the skills that you are able to market have a favorable demand/supply ratio that inflationate their value.
Moreover, it was promised (because when people graduated from college in 1973 it made sense) that any college degree was your white collar meal ticket. I still think people who advocate undergrad liberal arts/humanities are delusional or have a vested interest (like they themselves have non STEM degrees)
