In my experience, the problem lies with management
That so many more people are studying these subjects is great news - I did Maths, Physics and Chemistry at A level, then studied Engineering at University. The reason I did this is because I had taught myself to program really competently by the time I was 14 during the early 80s home computer revolution, and computer studies O level was so easy for me I breezed through it with a grade A without really having to expend any intellectual effort at all.
Engineering has proved a very useful background to have since I moved into IT at the age of 24, as the thoroughness, focus on processes, best practices, reuse of knowledge, quality assurance, etc that are bread and butter to engineers have always been sorely lacking in many of the places I've worked in the last 20 years, as IT just has not evolved enough to take these things seriously enough.
This is entirely the fault of management who probably don't have a clue about these issues and let hacker minded kids off the leash to create unholy messes because they see "results" happening quickly. MBAs and economics just do not place the emphasis on the engineering things that should make software engineering much more like civil or chemical engineering.
Anyway, good luck to them, studying maths or engineering will make you a far better IT person than business studies in my experience.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
