Is egyptology a pyramid scheme: Self-perpetuating university programs
Partial and tangential answer, but no other answers so far, so here goes:
For the first part of the definition (people who complete the university program do not find placement in the field), data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates may be useful, particularly &quot;Postgraduation plans (e.g., work, postdoc, other study or training) - Type and location of employer&quot;. Papers that use this dataset may compare by field.
The &quot;no benefit&quot; part could be studied by regression discontinuity around the admission cutoff, but the small sample size of fields like egyptology makes it low-powered.