I knew an absolute idiot who got a PhD from the Media Lab for putting a motion sensor and servo motor in a toy bear so it waved at you when a coworker wanted to talk to you and coworkers could tell when you were in your office. A fucking PhD.
The MIT underwater robotics team - backed by defense contractors giving them access to all the latest and greatest toys - has lost to high school teams making their robots out of tupperware containers and bilge pumps.
Part of the reason I declined a PhD scholarship back in my university days was that due to this kind of credential inflation, the value of a doctorate is steadily declining and there are far too few academic jobs to go around - most of the graduates I talked to were essentially forced out into industry, and if you're not specialising in something with real-world utility you've essentially wasted several years of your life while making yourself overqualified for lower-level jobs.