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Comment by AlunAlun | Hacker News Reader

This used to be the situation in Europe but it got out of hand, as a result all new PhDs in Europe must be advertised as three year programs, and completed in four at a maximum.

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Students apply for extension after four years. The only difference is that after 4 years you no longer receive the PhD. stipend and have to be paid from project grants. This might further reduce your income or force you to work even more on projects related only tangentially to your thesis.

I have worked in a few academic institutes (and still know many friends in the same places). 5 years seems to be the norm, with some people taking up to 7.

I am university lecturer, and the rules have been tightened dramatically in the last few years, precisely to prevent 7 or 8 year-long PhDs, which were indeed getting increasingly common, and benefited nobody.

Now, students must submit their thesis within five years (one of my students very nearly failed his PhD because of this), and there are funding restrictions for continuing beyond three.

I didn't know this was a Europe-wide rule, but as a professor in Spain I can attest that the 3 years + 1 year extension rule is now enforced and met. If your time elapses and you haven't completed your thesis, you're out.

I am in Spain. Maybe it has changed but a few years back it was the norm. The institute I worked for had a 5 year rule and you got kicked out (if you were doing research), but a few people managed to get extensions around that.

It has changed, I think around 3 or 4 years ago.

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