The nice thing about modern languages is, there is a lot more material, both formal and informal, available to students, meaning tapes, tv shows, video games, entire online courses, you name it. I wonder if the effect also works on classical languages? You watch one Chinese new year movie, next you are picking up a translation of “The Eagle-Shooting Heroes”, and the final stage is reading the analects of Confucius and the Shih-ching in the original.
It is fair to say the Internet and accessible resources have made learning obscure languages easier.
I can confirm this 
One difference might be, it is not a flood of Sumerian rap songs on Youtube and Classical Maya cartoons. Or is it…
In sixth grade we had a Languages course. French, Spanish, Japanese and German. One quarter for each, supposedly to help you choose which language you liked best. I really liked Japanese and planned to take that as my choice. I even did some studying over the summer.
Seventh grade rolls around and only two choices were offered: Spanish or French. 
I opted for Spanish, which actually worked out pretty well for me when I lived in the southwest US. Nobody thought Spanish was my native tongue, but I didn’t have to use spanglish or sign language.
They’re degrees in Korean and Japanese, so you’re right and everyone else is wrong this time - these are British universities, and if someone’s “studying Japanese” then that’s what they’re studying.
You study a maximum of two subjects, and it’s not unusual to combine a language with another subject (like the article mentions, business is a popular combination, or another foreign language), but it’s not like US universities where you take a variety of different courses in random subjects and then take the courses for your major - if your degree is in Japanese, that’s all you’ll study. Language, history, literature, culture, etc.
There might be a few students taking an extra course module in a language in their first year - some unis allow that - but they won’t be counted among those statistics.
It makes sense to study something you’re interested in, though. You’ll be better at it. And they’re very useful subjects, so it’s not like these students are making bad decisions.
Well, I prefer F.Hero and Milli, but they’re from Thailand so… 
When I went to high school in L.A. in the 70s, we could choose between French, German, or Spanish. I just checked the course catalog of our local high school, in the S.F. Bay Area, and they offer the following:
American Sign Language
French
Mandarin
Punjabi
Spanish
Tagalog
What a difference!