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My theory - people in this age group entered college at a very low point in the software development market. This was both because of the dot-com bubble crash, and because outsourcing had just begun and quality outsourcing was far cheaper than it is today. C, Java, and horrible APIs dominated at the time. Javascript and browser compatibility were a mess. It was a far less glamorous industry than it's become now over the past 15 years.

Few people who began training for a development career at this time were in it just for quick money.