Higher education is crumbling everywhere in NA, except for pro-track disciplines in science, medicine and law. Maybe this is a necessary trend.
It is ridiculous that I should earn more than someone with a higher degree, who certainly works harder than me, in roughly the same field of education. (And I don't earn much, definitely a 99 percenter|). I was talking to a PhD who was offered a fairly prestigious gig at the University of Toronto. Costing it out, he couldn't afford to take it.
Maybe we are reverting to the medieval mode where scholars were always poor and ragged unless they had rich families or patrons.