I agree with your comment that qualification X isn't necessarily needed, but it has it's limits of course. If you want to go into academia or a professional field such as medicine, the qualifications can be very rigid. Sometimes you can get away without a lower degree (e.g. bachelor's), but pretty much always need the terminal degree (doctorate).<p>As far as long PhD's are concerned, I think it's a difference in funding structure and expectation from some other countries. For one thing, when you hear that someone was doing their PhD for 7 years, that almost always encompasses master's work as well, even if they weren't awarded a master's. I am most familiar with how physics grad school works in the US, where the average PhD takes 6 years. Generally students who do get a master's on the way to a PhD get it after 2-2.5 years, so they spend 3.5-4 years on their PhD by itself. Another big difference from how things are done in the US versus what I know of in European universities is the way students are funded. Most European students I know are funded by the university/government and given 3-4 years to complete their PhDs. After that, they have no more money. In the US, funding is secured by the grad students themselves by essentially being hired by a professor as a researcher or working as a teaching assistant for a professor or the department (or possibly winning a fellowship from a government agency). Often this funding is on a semester to semester basis and in principle can last indefinitely. The fundamental nature of research means that it can last a <i>long</i> time when external constraints, such as funding, are not in place. I think my university had a rule that you had to graduate within 12 years or so.