The PhD Pyramid Scheme?

[Photo credit: anonymous gwen]

The Economist has recently written an article on what they (or the author, to be more specific) believe today's Ph.D. has become. It's an interesting article, and it's sure to get some heated debate going. Basically, the author compares a Ph.D. in science to a Ponzi scheme, citing many comparisons between the two. I'm going to leave my opinion out of this for the moment, but I'd like to hear what some of you out there in MBP think. Please read the article - it's not terribly long, and I promise you that you'll be either happily or angrily intrigued:

http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

There is already a great debate going on at the bottom of that article, but let's see if we can't get one going on here!