Well, from my point of view, elite-level education in humanities for most of the history was a privilege reserved for the elites (to define "elites", I will use

Well, from my point of view, elite-level education in humanities for most of the history was a privilege reserved for the elites (to define "elites", I will use a narrow definition of "not having to work for living", though there are some exceptions). So if you consider obtaining a PhD in humanities, you need to _plan_ that you won't be "working" for the rest of your life, either by the "virtue" of being born in a wealthy family, or by networking and targeting the privileged sinecures. The system is unfortunately _designed_ to work this way.