When I was in school it was the rare exception for a student to work during the school year. When I got out of school, I went with DuPont, which then had the largest engineering department in the world. Six months later I bought an Oldsmobile with my new engineering salary. A year later I bought a nice house. But now, most engineering students are not so well off when they first graduate.
Student loans are a big difference between today's graduate vs. yesterday's.
They have to pay off those low-interest, college loans. For most it takes several years. Not many can buy a car or a house right away. So it is a little harder for them when they are starting their adult lives. These companies and others actively recruited engineers and filled large, annual quotas with new graduates.