It seems like undergrads are entering ECE/EECS departments with far more programing experience as well, and there is far more awareness / advertisement / (over)hyping of "glamorous" FAANG-type environments and trajectories. As compared to EE companies where the perception is that jobs are far more "traditional".

Regarding the article's comments on the decline of tinkering, either it's causal or correlated, but it seems like students have far less physics (E&M) exposure than programming experience, and many don't want to grind through the math required (differential equations is often taught poorly, contributing to this phenomenon). So it's seen as far simpler to just do as little EE as possible to finish the degree and get the sweet SWE job.