I got a master's degree in history by bailing on a PhD program after the second year. The Reddit post you linked is spot on. I left the degree program long eno

I got a master's degree in history by bailing on a PhD program after the second year. The Reddit post you linked is spot on. I left the degree program long enough ago that some of the people who started with me have finished their PhDs, although many of them still have not, after nearly a decade. Of the ones with PhDs, the only ones with decent jobs are the ones who work outside of academia. The others are adjuncts, and some of them qualify for food stamps. The thing about getting a PhD is that you defer all of the income and career opportunities many people have in their 20s. By the time you graduate, other people your age have already paid their dues in entry level jobs, got promoted, bought cars and homes, been able to afford travel, and saved money for retirement. When you graduate you will be a decade behind everyone else in that aspect of life. The only reason any rational-thinking person would make such a sacrifice is if the payoff at the end could make up for it. A STEM PhD opens doors to a lot of jobs in the private sector. The only door opened by a humanities PhD is a chance to compete in one of the worst job markets in the world: academia, where there are several times as many new PhD graduates as jobs every year.