Help me choose a Doctoral program

[spohara]

Gonzaga is Catholic. It is also the most well known name on the list. I'm not 100% sure what "personal reasons" means. As far as research, you can do that inside or outside of a degree program. A PhD is a big undertaking and I wouldn't recommend it for trivial reasons. If you want to teach, you will be able to do adjunct with a masters, and your CV is going to look great since you're a VP and have an impressive academic pedigree. If I were in your shoes, I personally would think twice about attending a "B tier" school for my PhD since you've gone to great schools in the past. I'd also be hesitant to listen too much to advice from this forum which focuses on people trying to hack degrees because they have constraints on their time, money, or have a less than stellar academic history (my example, includes poor graduate GPA so I went for earned admissions to get back into grad school and weird time constraints, so I needed a very flexible program).

All of this is to say, 1. I would look at funded options if you want a program that matches the rest of your academic history, and your CV should be good enough to get one. 2. If you must have a PhD, but can't manage a funded/full time option because of work demands, go with the cheapest you can find. 3. Take my opinion or anyone else's with a tiny grain of salt, make sure the degree does what you want it to do for you.