[RMiller]

Mr. Campbell brings up an EXCELLENT point (do we produce graduates for jobs that don't exist) that maybe students are catching on to quicker than those employed or retired. The reality is that engineering and hard sciences is not a sacred line of work that cannot be exported overseas (and I don't mean western Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan, I mean India, China, Russia, Latin America, etc - places that have lower standard of living). I think some of us (myself included) thought this was the case. The fact is, you can do a lot of the work that engineers do overseas: Production, design work, and even research off the top of my head.
So, if the field is small and likely to get smaller, what is the drive to go into engineering and science? I don't have any actual data on hand, but I seem to recall in recent years, the number of graduates unable to get a full-time job in the engineering field to be quite high.
Now add to it that engineering/hard sciences are generally more expensive - often requiring more than four years with additional cost in each term (labs, tuition, etc) along with rising education costs overall. This often requires students to take on more debt, which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, thus delaying when they can reasonably buy a home, car, start a family, etc even if they do find a job.
Then there is the biggest thing for a lot of college students: engineering and the hard sciences are difficult and require a lot more time and effort than other degrees. Instead of spending all weekend enjoying themselves, they often HAVE to study or do homework.

All this to say: students have many reasons for dropping out. Some of those reasons are the exact same reasons I think we (as part of the engineering / hard sciences community) should not push students without a genuine interest in the field to pursue it and even those that do have an interest should be told downsides to the field (and no, I have not given all of them) while also giving telling them about other options that may in fact be more interesting and practical (trade schools are one example).