$300/wk is about or below minimum wage. I hope an American (I assume you mean US, BTW - America refers to the western hemisphere) makes more then that, at least on average.

And unfortunately, we're saddled with >50 yr old infrastructure. Europe and Japan were to some degree helped by US investments to rebuild after WWII.

Back in the day (I graduated in 1976 (BS)) it was a mix of people who really wanted to be engineers (mech/civil/hydraulic/electric/etc) and people who thought they would make a lot of money. Honestly, I think the curriculum was hard enough at my mid-level state U that if you weren't dedicated and involved, you'd not finish your degree. The geeks did well, the money seekers changed majors (mostly to business).

I hadn't thought about career prospects, just knew I wanted to be an engineer.

I did go back to grad school 2 decades later for "fun" and got a "hobby PhD" in CS doing computational microbiology from a top 20 University. Not using it, still nursing the bruises, maybe don't regret it - learned a ton, and it does help in day-to-day work, but ...