I am actually European. Many people from my country study in the U.K. There you basically pay for education.
I am also writing this from experience. I used to write thesis for students who were lazy. I was getting pretty good money out of it. Its rather ridiculous since most of them just pay their way through and then come back to my country and get a government position. (which is basically early retirement).
I didn't realise it was that bad in the UK. Harder to get away with in The Netherlands, because of entry standards and academic student monitoring (people are actually asked to leave if they underperform). Also I couldn't have survived the exam committee's grilling if I hadn't written my thesis myself, but that was some time ago. Also, Dutch universities have better table tennis teams 8-).
When it comes to PhDs, it is just as much a factory here as elsewhere, even in the engineering sciences. €93000 a pop goes to the university for each dissertation. Oh well.
I see people of my age reverting to their good old European title of "ir." or "Dipl. Ing." rather than the more "modern" "MSc", just to give a hint about what they think of international title inflation. Some drop the title altogether.
Yeap, It's rather ridiculous. I never use my Ph.D title either. it's a joke