> Are they REALLY telling kids nowadays to go major in whatever interested them?
Speaking for myself and the majority of people close to me (late twenties / early thirties, Dutch, mostly middle-class), that's exactly what we were told. Maybe around one in ten people I know went for STEM taking into account 'worth the cost', but it's hard to tell because most of them were pressured by their STEM-parents, so the reasons could've been different ("everything else is pseudo-science", etc.)
People I know slightly older than me are even 'worse' in this regard and seem to have been raised with the 'keep studying as long as you like' and 'follow your passion above all else' model, which I was most definitely not raised with, so the perspective has been changing pretty rapidly.
looking at the friends of my progressively younger brothers, the advice is more as you say: college is still 'the thing to do - if you can', but there is much, much more emphasis on job prospects. Part of the reason for that might be that the Dutch system has become more expensive though.
Speaking for myself and the majority of people close to me (late twenties / early thirties, Dutch, mostly middle-class), that's exactly what we were told. Maybe around one in ten people I know went for STEM taking into account 'worth the cost', but it's hard to tell because most of them were pressured by their STEM-parents, so the reasons could've been different ("everything else is pseudo-science", etc.)
People I know slightly older than me are even 'worse' in this regard and seem to have been raised with the 'keep studying as long as you like' and 'follow your passion above all else' model, which I was most definitely not raised with, so the perspective has been changing pretty rapidly.
looking at the friends of my progressively younger brothers, the advice is more as you say: college is still 'the thing to do - if you can', but there is much, much more emphasis on job prospects. Part of the reason for that might be that the Dutch system has become more expensive though.