we see this vocational awe with other professions where the number of folks who want to do it wildly exceeds the amount of funding (public or private) available for the work.

and it's self-fufilling, to some extent. you grow up and hear about how $profession is so wonderful, and you're a bit more likely to go into it. now there's just a few more people trained for it than necessary. supply and demand drops wages a bit, mythologizing increases to make the workers feel better, another slight increase in folks wanting to go into the field, process repeats.