Since I'm apparently a Millennial now, let's see if I can offer some explanation. I'm not trying to excuse anything, just laying out some facts and very common patterns.
Most (all?) of us grow up hearing "go to college, get an education so you're a shoe-in for a good job," and we hear it from
everywhere so we actually believe it. Then we're pressured to go to college immediately after high school, because the longer you put it off the less likely you will go to college. Then we find ourselves in college with little to no real life experience, where we try to figure out just who we are and what we want to do with the
entire rest of our lives, no big deal. Then we (most of us at least) graduate with a degree in something, hopefully something that's directly applicable to a trade (accounting, programming, geology, whatever), and we try to find entry level work with our
BS. When we get interviews we do really stupid things because we lack life experience, lack work experience (especially in professional settings), still aren't real certain we're making the right choices, and we think that piece of paper we just got actually means something. If we don't find that our entry level jobs are being filled by experienced but unlucky veterans, we find ourselves in jobs that we (may) know a bit about but we really have no idea how to
do the job. When we realize that we often react poorly (same as anyone else); we may feel overwhelmed and blow off work just to escape it, we may compensate for incompetence with bravado, etc.
Things are even worse for those that don't graduate (for financial or personal reasons), graduate with a useless degree (useless major, weak grades, personality
doesn't fit the field, whatever), aren't accepted for a job in their field, or aren't accepted for a decent job at all.
Knowing what I do now, I advise to never go to college unless you're very certain of what you want. Instead they should work full time and live in their own place for a year, to see what adult life is really like before they try to decide how they want to live it. Some people will do that and find their way into a job with long term potential right away, and that's great since that is the whole point of college. Those that still go to college will actually have a clue, and their grades and choice of majors should reflect that. Then once they've graduated they will already have work experience at a real job so they will have some idea of how to talk to a boss, what kind of attire works in what offices, and how to accept help when they're new on the job. Oh, and with actual life experience comes an appreciation for just how much money those student loans are for, which should lead to fewer financial problems later.