The other problem I think is that "software engineer" is such a damn broad role. People try their hand at coding and try some specific niche and either don't love it or get frustrated and then don't really try much else. When in reality there are tons and tons of avenues and flavors and areas requiring more or less technical expertise and different kinds of technical expertise. Some of these people might make excellent QA or cybersecurity researchers, some might be interested in front end development of UI or oldschool low level chip stuff. Or maybe they are more broad, macro infrastructure type people. Without already working in "the industry", however, it is hard to know where to start and what to try.