Students who do not graduate because of their doubts, are stigmatized as loosers and drop-outs. In future times, once this horror will have been more fully exposed, academic titles will turn into records of shame, more incriminating than ciminal records themselves. And that is not a prophecy nor a scientific prediction, it's just one of those gut-feelings that carries more weight than a library full of research data. Firstly, let's be clear about what is science. Universities invented scientists as a class.
Universities give titles to some, while excluding others and thus creating an elite.
What complicates matters is that science is sometimes restricted to certain specializations, but science can also be extended to many, if not all, academic areas. Control over many sectors of society in turn hinges on professional qualifications, thus extending the concept of science into a professional career. Research versus non-research funding further complicates matters. But the issue remains the same. Some people are privileged over others, merely because they call themselves scientists.