Maybe masters will become more popular. I have no problem with bars being raised on PhDs, but it's crazy history that math may be the first one to have it raised (or brought back to old levels).
IMO, I don't think this will raise the bar for PhDs.
In every field of science, PhD student research is largely incremental. Very rarely is a thesis groundbreaking. The point of it is all is to function as an apprenticeship for that PhD student to become a scientist.
Sometimes a particularly gifted or lucky one hits an important result, but that's rare and isn't the purpose.
I agree, but there's degrees (no pun intended!). Many PhDs are just an advisor telling a student exactly what to do. The training is still valuable, but it's not really what a PhD is "supposed" to mean. The example I give because of familiarity is many PhDs in chemistry/physics are just clicking run on simulations + running predefined analysis with results already predicted by the PI. Or in chemistry specifically OChem wet lab, it's often basically a minimum wage factory job.
In every field of science, PhD student research is largely incremental. Very rarely is a thesis groundbreaking. The point of it is all is to function as an apprenticeship for that PhD student to become a scientist.
Sometimes a particularly gifted or lucky one hits an important result, but that's rare and isn't the purpose.