It could happen that the academic world would exploit areas of folk music. I don't see much evidence of it though. Bearing in mind the very little of what I know about these graduates (gleaned from here mainly), it does not look as if we have much to worry about.
Where people want to preserve and nurture folk music, there is always going to be more influence in some hands than others. Total concensus on what folk music should mean is nigh on impossible (as we know very well from Mudcat).
I have often raised the view that there is hardly any real folk music alive in either my native country(the UK or in my adopted one (Germany). Still, we now have the Mudcat and some academic interest in a subject dear to our hearts. Let's welcome it onto the field.