Tax department can be hard to reach, but oterwise it's normally easy to get help. Older generations (usually pensioners) need help with everything, from banking to reward cards in stores to changing electricity providers and of course all the government paperwork, so everyone is used to people coming/calling and starting with "I need thing X, what do I have to do?".

I've noticed the same issue with banks, stores and telcos, where again, the answer is just one phonecall away (or an email, or a visit in person to one of their many locations), but (especially young) people don't do that and rather ask on reddit/forums. And their support lines are usually reachable within minutes with a live person on the other end.

Usually it's advance-basic questions, stuff that support staff knows of the top of their head, but not easily googlable (eg. "i'm missing two exams to pass the year, is it possible to attend lectures and pass exams for the next year, while being officialy repeating this year", and stuff like "if i change my mobile package from X300 to X500 do I need to pay a fee, because I bought my phone on a contract", etc.)

I guess my question should be: what is your theory for why students that are old enough to know better, don’t know better?

I wouldn’t have asked when I was a university student because I simply didn’t understand how to ask. I remember being astonished after my degree when a woman I met talked about how she had gamed the uni system: a skill I had never been taught, and which she had learned (or perfected) by working in a political job.

I have since learnt better the ways and wiles to pull information from government systems.

My parents may complain about electronic systems, but I am pretty sure they wouldn’t want to revert back to triplicate paper systems and the bureaucratic failures that were always potential.