At leas in some European countries there was quite a tradition of studying for long amounts of time, like 6 or so. Add a PhD, military service and long high school and you end up with 19+2+6+3=30. No gap year etc.

We're talking low 1-digit percents here. The "tradition" of PhDs is a niche one.

It comes from experience, I know quite a few people who got their first job after 30. You study, you take the gap year, you study some more.

Many people become professional students when high education is free. This problem isn't exclusive to Europe, but less common in the US.

In Latin America, many people take on masters and PhD while living with their parents. You are often seen as smarter than the idiot who's working.

> In Latin America, many people take on masters and PhD while living with their parents. You are often seen as smarter than the idiot who's working.

In Latin America a very small minority of young people even get to go to a proper academic institution and not just a quasi-degree mill college. For those going to somewhat reputable institutions with post-tertiary programs it's another small minority that gets to a masters degree, with even fewer getting into a doctorate track...

Quantify "many people" because it's absolute bullshit it's any kind of representative cohort of the population with the means to achieve this.