But many of the PhDs minted at first-tier colleges have no career prospects but to teach at second-tier ones, and so forth. You need lots of students down the c

But many of the PhDs minted at first-tier colleges have no career prospects but to teach at second-tier ones, and so forth. You need lots of students down the chain to keep them employed; it's basically a Ponzi scheme. So you've got problems on two sides: lots of people getting into debt for no reason on one end, and lots of disaffected pseudo-elites on the other. A recipe for destabilization.