In honesty, part of the problem with PhD 'grad school' in the US is that the prior parts of the pipeline - undergraduate and high school - are so poor. If you'

In honesty, part of the problem with PhD 'grad school' in the US is that the prior parts of the pipeline - undergraduate and high school - are so poor. If you're spending a couple of years when people come to college teaching them, effectively remedial science, then of course it's going to set the whole thing back a number of years (manifesting itself, at least partly in this case, in it taking 10 years to complete a PhD in the US.) (Data source: the ten people or so I know who've worked in academia in the EU and the US - hardly conclusive, but compelling qualitative data when you consider the strength of their views.) The other issue here is that, if you take into account the fact that most people studying a PhD in the UK will already have done a (taught) Masters level course, then there's a helpful process of elimination there as well. It seems much less of a pre-requisite in the US.