Historically this has been (largely) correct. With major and important exceptions science used to be a business of the idle rich and weirdos till around WWII*. In the last decades though it taylorised so much that I'm not sure if we can view it as the same institution as before
https://twitter.com/ZiyyigoTipyigo/status/1546266271838355457
* Of course I'm generalising. Some disciplines (chemistry) could have more potential for practical applications and thus earning potential than others (physics). But the science itself transformed into a somewhat normal industry with somewhat normal career potential only recently
I'd even argue that the post-WWII world when academia was indeed a normal career track, was a historical aberration mistakenly taken for a new norm. Under normal conditions you either have some other means of income or you starve. Now we're simply returning to the historical norm
And a part of this historical norm is what is often called "elite overproduction" - masses of educated and ambitious youth who can't and won't find any employment. From the English Civil War to the Taiping Rebellion, it was a (or may be *the*?) major factor of social unrests
How do I know if it was a major factor of the English Civil War? I don't. I am simply citing Hobbes who described universities as the Trojan horses within the Christendom and a major factor of rebellion. If Hobbes said so, who am I to argue?
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