True. Could this work be done by advanced masters students, tho? It's one thing to spend 2 years on a degree you might conceivably use as a stepping stone for something else, but the time and effort for the doctorate are just too much in a field w/o tenured jobs.
It's mostly masters degrees who get snookered in by life's needs to become EBD...and never finish the Ph. D. And some Ph.D's who aren't good enough to get tenured. But the system requires it. A dark underbelly to the university system. Math is almost as bad.