At my college, the professors explicitly told us to always ask for extensions if we needed it, provided it was a few days to a week in advance. It is a form of time management to know ahead of time that you have 60 hours worth of work due in the next 48 hours, and talking to the professor builds communication skills and the good habit of giving feedback to your superiors.

If you're talking about asking for an extension 10 minutes before the deadline (or 10 minutes after), that's a whole different kettle of fish.

I can understand that. What bothers me though is the attitude that it is okay to ask for extensions on a regular basis.

Perhaps this has more to do with the role college plays in American society. I believe that college has become more of a high school extension than anything, and so maybe it is wrong to blame students who treat it as such. I doubt they would be slacking off in grad school (but I can't be sure!)

It's OK to ask. You may not get the extension, but given the amount of unannounced lateness teachers often see, asking for an extension in advance with a "how can we work this out" attitude looks like an attempt to be responsible. Contrast with an attitude of starting things the day they're due and then acting surprised when you can't finish a multi-week project in one day.

Outside of school, deadlines are usually based on project estimates, and as long as you provide sufficient notice, it's often possible to adjust the schedule and dependent activities to fit the actual time required to complete task(s). If it's not possible, then business decisions have to be made regarding what tasks can be abandoned or modified to meet the hard deadlines -- regardless of how the business adapts, you're better off bringing up a scheduling issue before it becomes critical.

Given that deadlines in education are more or less entirely arbitrary, I don't see the harm in extending them within reason, and providing students with the opportunity to successfully complete their tasks.

As for tardiness -- it happens. If someone consistently fails to meet our estimates, but delivers a sufficient degree of value within a reasonable amount of time, then I'll simply learn to incorporate their individual turn-around time in my estimates.

I understand that. However, these employees want to get the work done on time, and see it as important, but couldn't get it done in the time estimate. The attitude I notice is more of an indifference to the deadline.

I do understand the indifference -- the deadline is more or less completely arbitrary, as there are very few critical scheduling issues dependent on strictly punctual delivery, and all that is really required is reasonable timeliness. If the professors allow it, why not use the additional latitude to your advantage?

Hard deadlines are generally driven by what are ultimately financial/market concerns. I sweat the deadlines when a trade show is approaching, and I sweat the budget when we see schedule slippage on an release, but most of the time I'm happy as long as everyone is productive, progress is being made, and the budget looks OK.

I don't see this that often at Georgia Tech. The one class where I know someone who asked for extensions, extensions were almost always granted, however, you took a 30% grade deduction for an extra day.

why not? In the real world, just because you happen to miss a deadline doesn't mean the work doesn't still have to be finished.