This is the foundation of all academia currently. It’s a nice pyramid scheme while you’ve got it, I just finished witnessing my youngest brother go through it in grad school and his defense is on Tuesday.
This might be true in some cases, but I suspect that ultimately it's only the wealthy who can pursue these higher degrees. Yes, the pay might be low but that doesn't mean they are overall impoverished.
Put another way, the cost of education is one thing, but being able to afford the process might be a higher bar, for some, or more.
Before I became aware of criticisms likening universities to pyramid schemes, I recall hearing a Stanford professor managing a large research team say something like: "For this project, we have around 150 PhD students exploring it further in many directions". I was astonished by the sheer scale of their capabilities, especially because I liked the subject and had hoped to explore it as a hobby with just a few like-minded friends.
Although I'm my case, the other people were mostly at FAANG companies, rather than academia.