The impact of Ph.D. funding on time to Ph.D. completion

Abstract

The time for completing a Ph.D. continues to be longer than desirable in most higher education systems worldwide. This is a concern for research funding agencies, universities, academics, and doctoral students facing increasingly constrained labour markets, particularly in academia. This study assesses the role of Ph.D. funding on the time to Ph.D. completion, revisiting literature that has mainly focused on the USA and used single university case studies as the main methodological approach. In this study, a representative national sample of doctorate holders working in Portugal is examined. Following the premise of previous studies, and using Breneman’s and the concept of credentials as our main key theoretical approaches, it adds a new element to the analysis: publishing during the Ph.D. related to research funding and time to completion. Our analysis shows that the time to complete the Ph.D. generally results from a combination of funding conditions, publishing during the Ph.D., and an associated time strategy. In particular, our results show that Ph.D. funding increases the time to complete the Ph.D. However, if those receiving Ph.D. funding also publish during their Ph.D. programme, it reduces the time to complete the degree. Funded students who publish finish the Ph.D. earlier than funded students who do not. Unfunded Ph.D. students who are highly research productive take longer to complete the degree. The results also show that STEM students are more susceptible to the effects of funding and research productivity than non-STEM students. The types of funding support do not affect the time to the degree.