[neilv]

And the 17 year-olds are in an adversarial environment.

I've known very smart people who, as late teens, were told all sorts of lies by colleges, about employability in the fields in which they ultimately got degrees.

It could've been wishful thinking on the part of the department (e.g., "Every industry needs Philosophy majors!"), and it could've been professors out of touch (e.g., "Hey, I got degrees in literature, and I got a professorship, coincidentally at the same university where my mom was head of a department, so anyone can do it! And my friends who didn't get professorships all got jobs at the hedge funds run by friends of their dads!").

And everyone was telling these teens that they need a degree, and everyone they knew was doing it.