The indentured servitude can be cut pretty short if you go out and out to apply yourself. If you get into a decent program, your Ph.D. will be fully funded: a

The indentured servitude can be cut pretty short if you go out and out to apply yourself. If you get into a decent program, your Ph.D. will be fully funded: a full ride plus a stipend for living costs. Unlike professional education and masters degrees, Ph.D. programs realize that you'll never make enough money as an academic to pay them back, so they actually pay for you in the interests of reproducing academia. You can get through your coursework in a year-and-a-half if you take courses over the summer. Take your comps over the next sixth months, so that by the beginning of your third year you're ABD ('all but done' or 'all but dissertation'). You can write a dissertation in two years, one if you have an amazing work ethic and an original idea going in. It's not actually that terrible a proposition. Four years, getting paid (although admittedly not a lot) to sit around reading lots of books that you're interested in, write a couple seminar papers, and TA two or three classes. The petty politics, however, you will never have a chance of escaping. If you want a job getting paid to sit around thinking interesting things, try a think tank. I worked for two years as a research assistant at a major bipartisan foreign policy think tank in Washington DC. Had a great experience.