Extend PhD support to four years to ease stress, UK funder told

In the 1970s I got two years full DPhil funding from the then SSRC. It took me another three years to complete during which time I got a full-time job. Mind you, the grant was then at a generous level, £300 a year more than my starting salary in a Publishing company. And of course in that era there was no student loan debt hanging over me…Extending the time for doctoral funding will not solve anything when it is the whole tertiary system that needs radical overhaul…

The default position should always be to fund (subject to satisfactory progress) for the maximum period allowed for PhD study. Funding or its withdrawal should not be used covertly to force students to finish early. The flipside of this is that there no need to guarantee funding for 3.5 years too. Funding should always be conditional on satisfactory progress (with robust safeguards put in to account for mitigating circumstances) measured across a clearly defined period, using pre-defined and clear criteria that may be discipline specific.