A few hundred years ago expecting everyone to be literate was thought ridiculous. Many people today think that everyone learning to code is ridiculous, yet I would wager that in 100 years, people will look back and wonder how people could get by when only 10% of the country were code literate. The standard of education rises continually throughout time. The PhD will become the new normal, just like the Masters degree is increasingly becoming the new normal today.

Number of People with Bachelors degrees continues to grow:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/02/22/new-...

Number of People with Masters and PhD degrees doubled since 2000:

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/02/number-of-peo...

Current completion rates for doctoral program hovers around 56%. And that's with a huge gating process filtering out unqualified candidates. The idea that this will become a norm is just not realistic. A Bachelor's degree is averaging six years now, a Masters another two/three and a PhD ten. Expecting people to spend 18-20 years to achieve a PhD just goes against all trends unless the three degrees become seriously degraded in standards.