Yes, that's true. For full disclosure, I left a PhD after 4 years to work in industry (I was frustrated by some aspects of academia), having spent three years o

Yes, that's true. For full disclosure, I left a PhD after 4 years to work in industry (I was frustrated by some aspects of academia), having spent three years on an NSF fellowship, so I may be biased here :-) I absolutely didn't go into it thinking I would do that, and I try to bring a researchy perspective everywhere I go now. I also think it depends on the school and the field. Where I was, it was common for first-years to get on a project right away and help churn out results. Probably guided closely by older students or advisors, but still doing productive work. I think you're right re: clawbacks, though. I can't imagine the mental pressure were the scenario to be "you MUST stay in academia or you owe the government $XXXk". I actually know a PhD student on a (non-US) government scholarship who has a clause like that. He calls it his "slave contract". Getting back to the original topic, I think that for any venture with a high rate of failure (startups or grad school or...), there has to be some room to allow the funded person/people to say "this isn't working" in good faith and pivot or leave. That's totally different from someone taking funding without the intention to use it properly, or just deciding they're bored or whatnot.