A common topic on this particular blog is the challenges that various graduate students (particularly women and those of color) face in completing their Ph.D. degrees. Up to this point, very few people outside of academia have seemed to notice. But judging from a recent New York Times article, colleges and even state legislatures may be starting to take notice:

The average student takes 8.2 years to get a Ph.D.; in education, that figure surpasses 13 years. Fifty percent of students drop out along the way, with dissertations the major stumbling block. At commencement, the typical doctoral holder is 33, an age when peers are well along in their professions, and 12 percent of graduates are saddled with more than $50,000 in debt.

These statistics, compiled by the National Science Foundation and other government agencies by studying the 43,354 doctoral recipients of 2005, were even worse a few years ago. Now, universities are setting stricter timelines and demanding that faculty advisers meet regularly with protégés. . . .

There are probably few universities that nudge students out the door as rapidly as Princeton, where a humanities student now averages 6.4 years compared with 7.5 in 2003. That is largely because Princeton guarantees financial support for its 330 scholars for five years, including free tuition and stipends that range up to $30,000 a year. . . .

But fewer than a dozen universities have endowments or sources of financing large enough to afford five-year packages. The rest require students to teach regularly. . . .

That raises a question that state legislatures and trustees might ponder: Would it be more cost effective to provide financing to speed graduate students into careers rather than having them drag out their apprenticeships?

Indeed, it is unfortunate that not all colleges can be like Princeton, especially large public state universities like the University at Albany SUNY, where I completed my Ph.D. I guarantee you that if I had the same kind of financial resources available to me back then that Princeton offers, I also would have finished significantly faster than the eventual 10 years it took me.

Nonetheless, I think it’s a positive development that colleges and universities around the country seem to now recognize that it’s not in anybody’s interest to prolong graduate study. At the same time, I recognize that some -- maybe even many -- people really like being graduate students and may not be in a hurry to finish.

But for the rest of us, more assistance and resources toward being “Ph.inally D.one” is greatly appreciated.