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by lambdatronics 1636 days ago
Yeah, I have seen instances where it's the student's lack of drive/progress, the PI being unreasonable, the student's project was too ambitious, plain bad luck (lab equipment caught fire & destroyed), or time taken off for family considerations (child-birth, caring for ailing parents).

I graduated in 6 years (including 2 years of coursework), which was the mode (not the median, though) for my department. The distribution skewed to the long side, and 5 years was the shortest I can recall.