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 ge

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.