> PhD research was never about financial security

You're looking at this wrong. PhD was always about financial security for the vast majority of PhDs. You think all those Chinese and Korean etc. students are coming to study engineering to get invited to the good parties back home? No, they're doing it because it provides financial security. Same for places all over the world. Europe, everywhere.

It's basically upper and upper middle class white Americans who pursue PhDs for the social prestige, because they already have actual capital, so they're pursuing social capital. Everyone else does it for a combination of money and love for the subject matter.