Actually, our system for funding postgraduate education is a mess.  Between that change and the repealer for the Individual Shared Responsibilty Payment ("mandate") in the Affordable Care Act, some industries may well be plunged into existential crises.  Stagnation has been settling in and we have to rid ourselves of it.

We'll still have doctoral students.  The way it is paid for will change.  Mr. Obama did not have a monopoly on change nor was he a messiah.