The degree should definitely be abolished, at least in all of the Humanities/Liberal Arts areas. No real important research that affects peoples' lives is done in this branch of higher education. It's all just intellectual masturbation really. I have been thinking of burning my PhD/doctorate degree. It is in music from University of Southern California. At one time it was one of the premiere music schools in the country. As soon as the outrageous, "overstuffed- shirt" professors and administrators realized the only way to sustain their cushy lifestyles and overbloated salaries was to sell the degree to almost anyone who paid for it ( especially foreign students) in the late 1990's and 2000's, henceforth, it basically became a worthless piece of garbage: completely devalued, almost like the German Mark after the First World War.