Should we try to reduce graduate program times to completion?

By Nicola Koper. Many universities across Canada are attempting to reduce times to completion for graduate student programs. At my own university, there have been numerous policy changes that are aimed at reducing program lengths. While masters programs are usually described as one- or two-year programs, and PhD programs are described as three- or four-year programs, average times to completion are often much longer than that. Certainly, I did my bit to increase these averages when I was a student, and I suspect many other readers of this blog have as well. So do we really need to reduce times to completion? I’ll argue that often, it isn’t in the best interests of students to shorten the length of their programs, and nor are university policies effective in doing so. Read more...