How many of them have ASD? How many of them had disrupted family lives? How many of them have mental health problems? How many of them were under heavy pressure to be perfect growing up?
I think it's a stretch to label every student as a pampered weakling. I honestly don't know exactly how so many college students started acting like this but considering that a lot of teens and young adults today are under heavy pressure to succeed in a increasingly hyper-competitive society, growing up in an increasingly unstable world, growing more cynical with their own country, the lack of genuine social relationships due to technology, a struggling economy, dealing with constant hate from older generations simply for being born a few decades too late, and the increasing lack of privacy due to smart phones and the internet, I do think that some of those people are eventually going to crack and try to find some unorthodox ways of trying to cope.
I'm not saying this is 100% acceptable for someone their age, but according to one statistic, children and teens today have as much anxiety as mental patients in the early 1950's.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2000/12/anxiety.aspx
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/anxiety-files/200804/how-big-problem-is-anxiety
In the 1950's, a high school diploma could get you a lot farther than most college degrees today. The bar has been raised so high that I think a lot of people are cracking under pressure.
http://theconversation.com/want-a-job-its-still-about-education-83064
I also think part of the problem for my generation is that we've been taught from birth that if we don't go to college, we won't get a good job and we'll be eating food scraps from a dumpster. Not many people told us that trades are an excellent way to earn money. We are also told that working at fast food or retail is only for failures and is beneath us instead of it being a valid job that so many people depend on. Like I've said, I think a lot of this has to do with intense amounts of pressure today and it's starting to take its toll on us.
