Your delivery is a bit crass, but I think your basic point is good: students need to hear about supply and demand in the job market.
I think they're mostly told "follow your dreams," "do what you love," etc. Those are good messages, too, in a different way, but they need to be given a realistic balance with what skills are marketable.
Personally, I learned that painful lesson by getting a post-college journalism job that paid exactly what my pre-college summer factory job had paid. "Yay for an education," I thought. And that was before the recession. For mostly unrelated reasons, I ended up in programming, but I don't want my kids to have to learn the same lesson for themselves.
One issue with my upbringing is that my parents told me to follow my dreams but failed to convey that following my dreams would still require intense dedication and endless hard work. I don't know if this is everyone's experience, but "follow your dreams" can sound a lot like "you can dream and want your way into wonderful things if you want it enough and you dream big enough." When in fact the appropriate lesson is more like "if your dreams are ambitious and in a glamorous profession there's a good chance you will have to work even harder than the med school kids unless you're incredibly lucky and don't count on being incredibly lucky."
I became a professional programmer for mostly pragmatic reasons (though I've always had an interest in programming), but I believe the lessons I learned as a programmer will serve me well when I eventually take another serious shot at arts/entertainment (if you can even call my first attempt serious). A lot of the hard work that goes into arts and entertainment are intentionally kept away from us, in part because it would strip away some of the "magic" and in part because a lot of people don't care how things work. As a younger person I would read books or watch movies and think I could write or direct works like that because I'm clever and entertaining and a good writer. After a few years hacking I know that being clever is worthless without great habits. I believe having that sort of mentality will take you a long way in most fields.
I think they're mostly told "follow your dreams," "do what you love," etc. Those are good messages, too, in a different way, but they need to be given a realistic balance with what skills are marketable.
Personally, I learned that painful lesson by getting a post-college journalism job that paid exactly what my pre-college summer factory job had paid. "Yay for an education," I thought. And that was before the recession. For mostly unrelated reasons, I ended up in programming, but I don't want my kids to have to learn the same lesson for themselves.