Some Ph.Ds are actively doing research, very few of them are contributing to the world. Most Ph.Ds do not.(Many tenured professors with long publication lists do not either, for that matter).
I'm not against doing a Ph.D - far from it. But it's important to face reality - most academic work (Ph.D included) does not actually advance humanity, not even small sections of it. Only a very small part of academic research does.
The same goes for art. Some artists inspire millions. Most people who do art do not - many do it because they enjoy it, even if they suck horribly at it (and are often willfully ignorant of how bad they suck at it). Most people would consider it foolish for someone to go into huge debt to practice art, especially if there's no indication it would be able to support them. Yet, somehow, even though academic studies are roughly equivalent in that sense, they enjoy some halo of "nonfoolishness".
Would you be as sympathetic to someone who ran up thousands of dollars on their line of credit to buy luxury items? Nope. In fact we outright call these people idiots (without any shame) for spending more than they earn.
An advanced degree is a luxury item. It's a WANT and if you can't afford it then maybe you shouldn't have it.
Desire and aptitude don't always go hand-in-hand. The people who always do well (you know the ones) will get the jobs and everyone else will whine about not being able to find a job that pays $100K right out of school. If you're going to end up flipping burgers anyway, why not save 100K and just go directly to the golden arches?
