In short, I think academia shares many of the classic elements of a social trap: It is in most faculty members’ and departments’ best interests to recruit a lot of graduate students. … [y]et, as in any social trap, when everybody acts in their self-interest, a negative collective outcome ensues.

What I’ve witnessed, more than anything else are students right out of college hoping to be the next hotshot in their field. I was even told, point-blank by the chair and resident hot shot faculty member, that if I wasn’t in it to be hot-shot, I was in the wrong program.