No it is not idle chatter: and to make matters worse, some attempts to cure the situation just make it worse. For PhD-s, at least. The European Commission is m

No it is not idle chatter: and to make matters worse, some attempts to cure the situation just make it worse. For PhD-s, at least. The European Commission is making an experiment within its FP-s (i.e. FP6) to introduce an "alternative" training after a BSc or MSc (doesn't matter which really), called Early Stage Training (EST). It is supposed to alleviate the overproduction of devaluated PhD-s, by proposing a "new and improved" alternative. EST-s get all the upsides of a PhD programme: they are scheduled to conferences in advance (i.e. ACEOLE in IEEE, CHEP etc.) and don't really get their papers rejected (their supervisors - and coauthors - tend to be on Editorial Boards). They also get full pension during the training, 500€/month for training expenses (conferences). At the end, they are not required to write a thesis, and would be formally expected to go to work in the industry. But. Already having the credentials in research (i.e. conf. attendances etc. on CV) EST-s can more easily stay in public research institutions, and if they bother to apply a dissertator (i.e. paperclip) to their 2-3 proceedings paper (which they don't need to write anyway), they can "get downgrade too", by handing it in for a PhD certificate (which committee would refuse an application containing 2-3 peer reviewed papers in a field?) It is also good for the supervisors, because FP WP-s are good money, can be turned to career benefits without the downside of inflating their own scientific grade peer pool. And the doctoral students can only watch this through (on conferences too) and are expected to suck it up. Invest several years (no pension, min. salary, min. publication budget etc.) to be advised to go to Vegas in the end.