I think this varies very much from country to country and university to university. As someone who has studied in the UK and in a few other places in Europe I can say that the comparison between them is enormous and in the UK it came down to people's attitude towards studying a lot as well. People find it hard to commit to 4 hour days 3 times a week, yet for example in Germany it is not that uncommon to have classes from early morning to evenings up to 5 times per week...