Quote Originally Posted by ItalAussie View Post
Grad courses at decent universities in the US go further in terms of material than a standard UK or Australian degree. Obviously there are plenty of individual fluctuations.

It's a non-issue, because a post-grad student in Aus/UK will learn relevant stuff independently over the course of their research degree, but there's no doubt that (on average) a US student who has finished their PhD coursework has covered more ground than someone starting a research-only PhD after a focussed undergraduate course. Obviously there are exceptions, etc., but the material does go further. If you do a coursework Masters degree after a standard undergrad course, you've probably covered about the same amount of territory worth of coursework.

I can only comment on the sciences, of course. That's an important caveat.
There is probably something in that as far as a broad knowledge goes (I always wonder how you would approach teaching those 'World History 500-1500' survey courses that they all seem to offer, and which I never encountered), but thesis topics would surely end up about the same. They have to meet the same basic requirements, and, on a more practical level, by the time you are good enough to be submitting it how many people will there be in your department capable of telling you new things about it?