the other night I was talking to a friend whose coworker's husband has a PHD in chemistry, was laid off, and now works at a chain furniture store...
I said he must not have been that great of a chemist...
people with advanced degrees mean jack shit and employers are seeing that... in the mid-90s, for profit colleges and universities started flooding secondary schools with their propaganda... scare tactics about never finding a job without a degree, empty promises about guaranteed jobs and salaries, misinformation regarding starting salaries, etc.
all of a sudden college became big business, it became less about learning, more about cranking out degrees at a higher rate... well when 90% of the population has a bachelor's degree, how much does your piece of paper mean? same thing happened with A+ certifications, then MCSE, CCNA, and now today even CISSP certs...
so now how do you set yourself apart, go for the advanced degree... master's, phd, or advanced certifications, CCNP, CCIE, CISSP-ISSAP/EP/MP, etc... more money in the pockets of the college...
want to further ensure repeat business through an advanced degree or continuing education programs? water down their undergrad, teach them next to nothing, make the classes "common", teach the bare minimum, and have them just regurgitate what you've spoon fed them on a multiple choice test. assign them the same projects, experiments, etc that every single college does so they can just google the answer... then when their employer says "hey can you do X, Y, or Z?", charge them $200/credit for "specialized career courses" or tell them to get their MBA (screw doing technical work, become a MIDDLE MANAGER). even then many of the master's degree programs and "graduate certificates" are all fluff bullshit.
I took two graduate level engineering management course in project management and the follow up project control... it was two semesters (6 credit hours) about building an IMS plan, staffing, earned value, etc. a few years later my job sent me to some training courses to do those exact same things, it was a grand total of 5 days training including them teaching me their specific management systems...
college is for the most part bullshit and IMO hurts research and innovation more than it helps