Moving back to the specific subject, one pattern I've seen among my younger friends is a failure to launch.
It's taking them longer to graduate (if at all). I knew what I wanted to do when I was 10 years old. i spent 4.5 years in college because that's how long it took to get all the courses in my degree. I got a job straight out of college at a major tech company.
"Failure to launch" is a good term.
I was also lucky - on entry to university I had to pick three subjects, two of which were picked for me and the third I took because it sounded interesting. Pretty much on day one, I realised that that third subject was what I wanted to do, and I've been doing it (in some form) ever since.
Looking back, though, one thing that strikes me is how woeful was my 17-y-old self's grasp of the range of jobs that were out there, and the paths that I would need to take to get there. There are loads of things I could have done... but most of those doors were closed before I even knew they existed.
And as time goes on, jobs become ever-more specialised. In Scotland, we make our first pick of subjects at 13ish. Pick the wrong subjects then, and your choices at 15ish are limited. Those in turn limit your choice of degree. And with so many jobs requiring a degree (and not just any degree, but something 'relevant') the wrong pick can
really set you back. In all cases it's
possible to retrain or change direction... but it's a whole bunch of extra time, when you may need to be making money on which to live.
And the situation is bad enough in Scotland, where we still have state-funded university education (for 5 years, IIRC). In England, or the US, where students have to fund their own education through debt, the cost of those "wrong paths" is pretty frightening.
On that one, at least, I think there is at least a partial solution available: it's surely not beyond the wit of men to provide better careers advice to young folk.