Along the lines of what this article is saying, life for students has changed considerably since I started uni in 1995. I lived at a college and on our 1st day we had to endure a harmless, yet juvenile, initiation; we got covered in mud and thrown in a bathtub full of food scraps. As undergrads, we never had spare money (most of us didn't have a job), we wore daggy and cheap clothes and our cars were older than we were and cost less than $1000. Mind you, we could get a cup of beer during happy hour at the Unibar for 5 cents! All college social and sporting events revolved around alcohol and if you got a grade of 51%, that was 1% wasted effort!
Now, all initiation rituals have been banned at colleges (not a bad thing), academic success is encouraged (again, not bad), and most undergrads I teach have part time jobs, tiny laptops, drive expensive cars, wear designer clothes and I see them sipping imported beers in the "cool" pubs on weekends.
Some change is good, some is not so good.