"5 year program" (laughter).

At CMU people were occasionally referred to as 'being on the 4-year plan', which meant you were like a superior alien intelligence (and, more importantly, focused on some good problem rather than, say, beer and girls or whatever you're into). But I think 7 years was typical, especially in "systems" or anything where you'd have to build something. Places that provision for 3 years total for a PhD are doing something fundamentally different, as people doing good quality PhDs at CMU were already casting around for topics quite early in those 6-7 years. I'm sure that in the long run it evens out for good people coming from good places in either system, as of course, the euro-PhD person can do 3 more years of post-doc under similar conditions.

Most phds I was involved with (Europe) were 4 years with the understanding there'd be a 2 year post doc if there was money (which usuallybcan be found if they want to keep you; even if it means 75% teaching), if you're not a complete cock up and if you want it.

Imho people make a bigger deal of EU/US phd differences than there actually is. The structure is different, but the end result not so much.