By Shivanshi Sehgal - Career strategist Political science career options in India go far past "become an IAS officer or teach it later." The real map includes policy research, corporate government affairs, law, journalism, diplomacy, NGOs, academia, and political consulting — each with a genuinely different pay ceiling, timeline, and risk. The track you pick matters less than whether you build a real, high-income skill portfolio inside it — research depth, writing, negotiation, and now AI-assisted analysis — because that combination decides your income ceiling and how early you reach financial freedom, not the job title on your degree.
The short version
- Political science leads to at least 9 real tracks, not two. UPSC and State PSC are only one of them, and honestly not the one with the strongest growth curve.
- The strongest long-term ceiling usually sits in political and policy consulting or an independent research platform you own, followed by corporate government affairs — both scale in ways a fixed government pay scale or an NGO grant cycle cannot.
- Civil services and academia both hide a second, separate competition after the one you already know about. Clearing the entry filter does not end the climb — it starts a new one.
- Building a genuine high-income skill portfolio — research depth, writing, data literacy, and negotiation — is what turns any of these nine tracks into earlier financial freedom. The degree label alone does not.
- Run the track you are leaning toward through The 4-Checkpoint Protocol before you commit years of exam prep, a PhD, or an unpaid internship season to it.
Whether you studied a plain BA in political science or a BA Honours version of the same degree — what Indian universities call political science majors in US-style phrasing — the nine tracks below stay the same. Honours adds research depth that helps at the academia and policy ends of the list; it does not unlock a different set of tracks entirely.
If you are still deciding whether a humanities path fits you at all before narrowing this far, read the Career Options category for the wider set of guides on arts and humanities-adjacent paths.
If you are close to a real decision here — starting UPSC prep, applying to law school, or picking between a PhD and a job — a session inside career guidance can help you weigh this specific move against your own finances and runway, not a generic list.
The short answer: what political science actually opens up
A political science degree is not a narrow ticket to one government exam. It is a foundation in reading, argument, and understanding how power and institutions actually work — a foundation that genuinely feeds nine different career tracks, each with its own timeline, pay structure, and risk profile.
The confusion is not a shortage of options. It is that almost nobody maps them honestly, ranked by which ones actually grow.
Why the options feel narrower than they are
The standard advice (and why it undersells the degree)
- "Prepare for UPSC — that's what political science is for."
- "Do a Master's and teach it, if the exam doesn't work out."
- "Maybe journalism, if you're good with words."
- "Or NGO work, if you want to 'do good.'"
Part of the problem is prestige order. Families and school counsellors rank options by how impressive the title sounds, not by how much growth headroom the work actually has. That ordering is exactly backwards for a decision this expensive in time.
The 9 real tracks, ranked by growth — not by prestige
The list below is ordered by real scalability and growth headroom, based on how each track actually pays as you gain seniority and proof — not by which one sounds most respectable at a family gathering. The tracks with the most room to scale, through ownership, corporate ladders, or a genuine multiplier credential, come first.
Election-cycle strategy, data-driven campaign work, and independent policy advisory. You set the scope and the price, and demand repeats every election cycle.
Companies now run dedicated teams to track regulation and represent their interest to government. Manager-level pay already outruns most government scales.
A three-year LLB or a CLAT-PG route turns a political science base into litigation, corporate counsel, or regulatory law — genuinely different ceilings depending on the lane.
Research associate and policy analyst roles at institutions that study government decisions. The work feeds directly into consulting, government advisory, and academia later.
Beat reporting, political editing, and analysis. Low ceiling if you stay employed at a routine reporting desk; a real ceiling if you build your own platform around it.
IFS officers represent India abroad through the Ministry of External Affairs. It runs through the same UPSC exam as IAS and IPS, with only a handful of seats each year.
IAS, IPS, and the wider Central and State services. This is the default most families reach for first — and, honestly, not the one with the strongest growth curve.
Programme, policy, and advocacy roles at NGOs, foundations, and multilateral bodies. Modest at entry; senior and multilateral-body roles pay meaningfully better.
NET-JRF, a funded PhD, then a genuinely scarce number of permanent assistant professor posts. Real work if you love research; a long, uncertain runway either way.
Honest take
Civil services sits at number 7 on this list, not number 1. That is deliberate. UPSC is genuinely prestigious and secure, but its pay is fixed by scale and its ceiling climbs slowly over decades. The tracks above it — consulting, corporate government affairs, and law — can reach a comparable or higher ceiling faster, for a person willing to build proof rather than wait for a rank list.
Track 1: political and policy consulting — the scalable-ownership path
This is the track most political science students never hear about, and it is the one with the most genuine room to scale. Dedicated Indian political consultancies — the best known being I-PAC, founded by Prashant Kishor — run election-cycle work: voter data analysis, messaging strategy, ground-organisation design, and campaign research, hired on a project or retainer basis tied to the election calendar.
Beyond campaign firms, independent policy consultants advise companies, associations, and sometimes government bodies directly on regulatory strategy. A smaller but related version of the same idea: building an independent research or political-commentary platform — a policy newsletter, a data-driven explainer channel, or an issue-specific consulting practice — that you own outright.
Why this scales when the others don't: you set your own pricing instead of sitting on a fixed pay band, demand repeats every election cycle rather than depending on one employer's budget, and once you have a track record you can bring on junior researchers instead of doing every hour of work yourself. An independent research or commentary platform built the same way — your own audience, your own archive of work — carries the identical advantage: reach that is not capped by one newsroom's or think tank's payroll.
The entry route is rarely a direct hire straight out of a bachelor's degree. Most people enter through a research or data-analysis role at an established consultancy, or by building visible independent proof first — a district-level voting-pattern analysis, a policy newsletter with a real readership, or a small paid research project for a campaign or client — that shows you can do the work before anyone pays you to lead it.
If you are seriously weighing the leap into independent consulting rather than staying inside a firm, read how to become an independent consultant in India for the readiness test before you leave a stable paycheck for retainer clients.
Track 2: corporate government affairs and public policy
Every large company operating in a regulated sector — telecom, pharma, fintech, energy, e-commerce — now needs someone tracking regulation, managing relationships with ministries and regulators, and shaping how the company responds to policy change. That function used to be an afterthought. It is now a real, growing corporate team.
Current Glassdoor India data puts the average total pay for a Public Policy Manager role at roughly ₹29 lakh a year, with a total pay range around ₹30-60 lakh and a median near ₹45 lakh — figures that already sit well above most government pay scales at an equivalent career stage. Entry-level analyst roles pay considerably less, typically in the ₹6-12 lakh range, and the climb to manager level depends on demonstrated regulatory knowledge and relationship-building, not tenure alone.
This track hires directly from policy research, journalism, and law backgrounds — a political science graduate with a strong writing sample and some policy-research exposure is a completely normal candidate for an entry government-affairs analyst role, not an outlier.
Track 3: law school as a common next step
Political science and law sit next to each other for a reason — constitutional law, regulatory law, and public policy are essentially the same subject matter approached from different angles. A three-year LLB after your undergraduate degree, or a CLAT-PG route into an integrated postgraduate law programme, is one of the most natural multipliers available on this entire list.
Law is not one career — litigation, corporate counsel, regulatory and compliance law, and policy-adjacent legal research each carry a genuinely different pay ceiling and daily-work reality. Rather than re-explain the full CLAT-to-courtroom mechanics here, read is law a good career in India for the honest breakdown of pay, entry routes, and which lane actually fits which kind of person.
Track 4: policy research and think tanks
Research associate and policy analyst roles at institutions such as the Observer Research Foundation, Carnegie India, the Centre for Policy Research, PRS Legislative Research, or the Takshashila Institution study government decisions, draft briefs, and feed evidence into public debate and, sometimes, actual policymaking.
Current Payscale India data for Policy Analyst roles shows entry-level pay (under one year) averaging around ₹3.4 lakh a year, rising to roughly ₹5 lakh in the one-to-four-year range, with an overall average near ₹5.9 lakh. It is not a high-paying entry point on its own — its real value is that it is the training ground that feeds directly into Tracks 1, 2, and 9: consulting, corporate government affairs, and academia all hire people who can already write a clean policy brief.
Master's fellowships built specifically for this route — public policy programmes, and one-year fellowships that place graduates inside legislators' offices or research organisations — are worth researching directly on their own current admission pages rather than treated as guaranteed placement pipelines.
Track 5: journalism and political commentary
Political reporting, election coverage, and opinion writing are a natural fit for the same research-and-argument skills a political science degree builds. The honest catch is that the ceiling depends entirely on whether you stay employed or build ownership around the work.
Entry-level journalism pay in India commonly runs ₹15,000-25,000 a month, rising to roughly ₹50,000-1,00,000 a month for senior reporters and editors with five to ten years of experience — a real but modest employed-track ceiling. An independent platform built around the same beat — a political newsletter, an explainer channel, or a niche commentary practice — follows the same ownership logic as Track 1 above, and can outgrow an employed newsroom salary entirely for someone who builds a real audience and reporting credibility.
For the fuller comparison of employed journalism against content and commentary work, read is journalism a good career in India and journalism vs content writing career India.
Track 6: international relations and the Foreign Service
The Indian Foreign Service is recruited through the same UPSC Civil Services Examination as IAS and IPS, and places officers at the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian missions overseas. It is genuinely prestigious, and genuinely small: the 2025 cycle carried roughly 55 IFS vacancies out of 1,087 total civil-services vacancies that year.
IFS officers sit on the same central Group A pay scale as IAS and IPS, with allowances that vary a great deal by posting country. The career runs through a long ladder of postings — attaché, third secretary, second secretary, and upward — and, like the wider civil services, carries a second, separate competition described below: getting selected does not guarantee a fast climb or a coveted posting.
Careers in international relations and development also exist outside the IFS — with the United Nations system, multilateral development banks, and international NGOs — but these routes generally need a strong postgraduate degree in international relations or public policy plus field or research experience, not a bachelor's degree alone.
Track 7: civil services — UPSC and State PSC
This is the option most families reach for first, and the numbers explain both why it is so attractive and why it deserves an honest opportunity-cost conversation before you commit years to it.
| UPSC CSE 2025 stage | Approximate figure |
|---|---|
| Applicants | Roughly 10-11 lakh |
| Cleared prelims | ~14,000 |
| Appeared for mains | ~13,000 |
| Called for interview | ~2,800 |
| Finally recommended | 958, against 1,087 vacancies |
Figures are 2025-cycle approximations reported around the UPSC CSE final result. Confirm the current year's exact numbers on the official UPSC notification before planning around them.
State Public Service Commissions run a parallel, somewhat less competitive route into state administrative and police services, with their own exam cycles, cadre, and pay scale — a genuinely useful adjacent option for someone drawn to the work of administration without betting everything on the single national exam.
Honest take: the opportunity cost UPSC prep rarely gets told to you straight
A selection rate near 1 in 1,000 means most serious aspirants, including genuinely capable ones, will not clear it — often after multiple attempts spread across several years of preparation. That time has a real cost: foregone income, foregone work experience, and, for exam-specific study alone, often less marketable proof than the same years spent building a visible skill. This does not mean the exam is not worth attempting for the right person. It means every serious aspirant needs a parallel skill, proof, or income route that survives an unsuccessful attempt — not a plan that only works if the exam does.
It is also not true that financial freedom is impossible inside government service — saving and investing steadily over a long, secure career still builds real wealth. The honest point is narrower: the job itself offers far less scalable income leverage than the ownership and corporate tracks above it on this list, and the pay climb is slow and structurally capped by scale, not by your effort alone.
If you have already attempted UPSC and are weighing what comes next, read what to do after failed UPSC attempts in India for the recovery plan, or UPSC alternative careers for humanities students if you are specifically exiting the exam track. If you clear it, the actual service allocation and cadre decisions are mapped in career options after UPSC CSE India.
Track 8: NGOs and the development sector
Programme officer, policy advocacy, and monitoring-and-evaluation roles at NGOs, foundations, and development-focused organisations put political science training to direct use — public policy analysis translated into on-the-ground programme design and advocacy.
Pay at entry level, at most Indian NGOs, is modest and tied to project funding cycles — a real constraint, not a detail to gloss over. It improves meaningfully with specialisation, and improves again at large international NGOs, foundations, and UN-system or multilateral-bank roles, though those usually require a strong postgraduate degree and several years of documented field or research work first, not a fresh bachelor's degree.
For a broader map of communication-heavy and helping-oriented careers this sector overlaps with, read a career in research for humanities students in India.
Track 9: academia — the professor route
If you genuinely love the research itself — reading deeply, writing for years on one question, supervising others' thinking — academia is real, valuable work. It is also the track with the longest and most uncertain runway on this entire list, and it carries the same two-stage competition pattern as civil services, described in full below.
The route runs through UGC-NET/JRF qualification, admission to a genuinely funded PhD programme (funded seats are limited; plenty of scholars self-finance or stretch a thin stipend), four to seven-plus years to finish the doctorate, and then a job market for permanent posts that has not kept pace with the number of qualified PhDs.
The two-stage competition trap: UPSC/IFS and academia
Two tracks on this list share a pattern the "just clear the exam" framing hides completely: clearing the first, well-known filter does not end the competition. It restarts it, in a different form, years later.
In the UPSC Civil Services Examination 2025, roughly 10-11 lakh people applied. About 14,000 cleared the prelims, roughly 13,000 sat the mains, about 2,800 were interviewed, and 958 candidates were finally recommended for 1,087 vacancies — a selection rate close to 1 in 1,000 applicants.
Getting recommended is not the finish line. An IAS or IPS officer starts on a fixed Level 10 basic pay of ₹56,100 a month. The real climb runs through eight more pay levels over a career of roughly 37 years, up to a single Cabinet Secretary post at ₹2,50,000 a month. Most officers in any entering batch never reach the top rungs — postings, cadre allocation, and empanelment for senior posts are their own, separate competition.
You need to clear UGC-NET/JRF, then get into a PhD programme with real funding — fully funded seats are limited, and plenty of scholars self-finance or stretch a thin stipend through a 4-7 year (often longer) doctorate.
Finishing the PhD does not guarantee a permanent seat. Delhi University alone has been reported to be carrying several hundred vacant permanent teaching posts, filled for years by ad-hoc and guest faculty on lower, often per-lecture pay, while the University Grants Commission has stated it has no standing plan to guarantee their absorption into permanent roles.
This is a genuinely different caution from ordinary "hiring is selective" competitiveness that shows up in policy research, journalism, or corporate government affairs. In those tracks, one strong portfolio can open the door and your growth from there depends mostly on the work you keep producing. In civil services and academia, a second, separate filter — postings and empanelment on one side, a scarce permanent-post market on the other — sits between "you made it" and "you actually reached the pay and influence people picture when they imagine the role."
What AI is doing to political science careers
Every track on this list touches research, writing, and analysis — exactly the layer AI tools are changing fastest. The honest picture has a real risk side and a real opportunity side, and they are not the same task.
- Routine, first-pass policy-brief drafting — turning a bill or committee report into a plain-language summary — is already shifting into AI-assisted workflows at many think tanks and corporate-affairs teams.
- Wire-style, fact-based political reporting (rewriting a press release, reporting a routine result) is easier to automate than beat reporting or investigation, so junior "content mill" journalism roles carry more exposure.
- Basic legislative research triage — finding which bills, committees, or notifications touch a specific sector — is now largely a database-search problem AI tools handle faster than a fresher can by hand.
- AI-assisted policy research: feeding bills, judgments, and committee reports into an AI tool for a fast first-pass summary, then spending your real time on the judgment call — what it means for a specific client, ministry, or campaign.
- Data-driven political analysis: constituency-level survey data, past voting patterns, and sentiment analysis can now be modelled and visualised far faster, which is exactly why data-literate people are being pulled into political consulting and campaign-strategy roles that used to be pure instinct.
- Independent commentary at scale: one person with real subject knowledge and AI-assisted research and editing can now credibly run a newsletter or explainer channel that used to need a small editorial team — a direct multiplier on Track 1's ownership advantage.
Right now: learn to use AI tools to draft first-pass summaries and structure research faster, but keep manually verifying every fact and citation before it goes out under your name — a wrong statistic in a published brief or article is a credibility problem, not just an embarrassment.
As adoption matures: the differentiated value shifts further toward judgment, client relationships, and original data work — running your own survey, building your own dataset — that a general-purpose AI tool cannot originate on its own. That is a strong argument for building data literacy alongside your writing skill now, rather than treating "I read a lot and write well" as a complete skill set on its own.
How to choose your track: The 4-Checkpoint Protocol
Before you commit real years — an exam attempt, a PhD, an unpaid internship season, a law degree — run the track you are leaning toward through The 4-Checkpoint Protocol. It will not hand you a single correct answer. It will surface the honest trade-offs a rank list or a family opinion never will.
Policy research and academia reward people who genuinely enjoy long solitary reading and writing. Consulting, diplomacy, and corporate government affairs reward people who get energy from rooms, negotiation, and persuasion. A brilliant researcher forced into client meetings every week will be miserable regardless of the pay slip.
UPSC preparation, a self-funded PhD, and unpaid think-tank internships all assume months to years of low or no income while you build the credential. Check your real financial runway and your family's tolerance for it honestly before you commit a track that assumes time you may not have.
Policy analysts, government-affairs managers, and political consultants are hired off a portfolio of prior research, briefs, or campaign work — not off the political science degree alone. Name the one thing you would need to show a hiring manager or a client before they would pay you for this track.
A junior role built mostly around drafting routine summaries or wire-style updates is more exposed than one built around judgment, relationships, or original research and data. Check the actual task mix of the entry-level job you are aiming at, not the job title.
Skills that matter on every track
A political science degree gives you a starting point — argument, reading, and institutional understanding. What turns that starting point into a real, high-income skill portfolio, and eventually earlier financial freedom, is a deliberate stack built on top of it, not the degree alone.
- Research and argument construction — the core skill every track above shares. Practise it on real, specific issues, not vague essay-writing.
- Data literacy — comfort reading survey data, election results, and government datasets. This is the multiplier skill that separates a median policy analyst or consultant from a strong one, and it is directly what AI-assisted political analysis rewards.
- Clear, plain-language writing — a policy brief, an op-ed, or a client memo is worthless if only other specialists can follow it. This is the proof format most of these tracks actually hire on.
- Negotiation and coalition-building — the human layer behind consulting, diplomacy, and corporate government affairs that AI does not touch. Client trust and relationship management stay entirely human.
- A working foreign language — a genuine differentiator for IFS, multilateral, and international-relations-adjacent roles specifically, less critical for the domestic tracks.
- Practical AI fluency — using AI tools to speed up research and drafting while personally verifying every output, per the AI section above.
Realistic pay across all 9 tracks
No single "political science salary" exists, because these nine tracks sit on entirely different pay structures. Here is the honest range by track, with sources noted where a figure is drawn from current public data.
| Track | Realistic pay | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Political & policy consulting (independent) | Highly variable, upside-driven | Income scales with client base and election cycles, not a salary band. Junior analyst roles at established consultancies pay a fixed project or retainer fee; senior, client-facing consultants set their own pricing. |
| Corporate government affairs & public policy | Entry ~₹6-12L; manager-level avg. ~₹26-29L total pay | The manager-level figure is a real Glassdoor India average for Public Policy Manager roles (total pay range roughly ₹30-60L, median ₹45L). Entry-level analyst pay sits well below this and rises with seniority. |
| Law (after law school) | Wide range by lane | Litigation, corporate counsel, and regulatory law pay very differently from each other. See the dedicated breakdown linked below rather than a single number here. |
| Policy research / think-tank analyst | Entry (<1 yr) ~₹3.4L; 1-4 yrs ~₹5L; overall avg. ~₹5.9L | Based on current Payscale India data for Policy Analyst roles. Senior fellows and directors at established institutions earn considerably more, but public figures are scarce at that level. |
| Journalism (employed) | Entry ~₹1.8-3L (₹15-25k/month); 5-10 yrs ~₹6-12L (₹50k-1L/month) | Pay depends heavily on the outlet, city, and beat. An independent platform around the same beat can change this ceiling entirely — see the consulting and journalism sections below. |
| International Relations / Foreign Service (IFS) | Central Group A scale from ₹56,100/month basic | Same starting pay level as IAS/IPS, plus foreign-posting allowances that vary a great deal by country and posting. |
| Civil services: IAS/IPS & State PSC | ₹56,100/month basic at entry, rising over ~37 years | Central services follow this scale up to ₹2.5L/month at the single Cabinet Secretary post. State PSC officers generally sit on a lower, state-specific scale with less national mobility. |
| NGOs & the development sector | Modest at entry, better at senior/multilateral level | Programme-officer-level pay at most Indian NGOs is modest and funding-dependent. Roles at large international NGOs, foundations, and UN-system bodies pay considerably more but need years of field or research proof first. |
| Academia (political science, post-PhD) | UGC/state academic scale once permanent; lower ad-hoc pay before that | A confirmed Assistant Professor post follows the applicable UGC/state pay scale. Ad-hoc and guest-faculty pay, which many scholars live on for years first, is considerably lower and often paid per lecture. |
Figures are directional and India-wide, drawn from current Payscale, Glassdoor, and official pay-commission data at the time of writing. Metro-city and top-institution pay generally sits above these ranges; smaller cities and newer organisations generally sit below. Verify current figures before making a financial decision based on any single number here.
The college and degree decision — an honest take
Political science is one of the few fields in India where the pattern most students assume — "the best option is the most expensive one" — actually runs backwards. Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University's top colleges (Hindu College, Miranda House, Lady Shri Ram), and Presidency University are simultaneously among the strongest political science departments in the country and among the cheapest, because they are public institutions with government-set fees.
Newer private liberal-arts universities — Ashoka, O.P. Jindal Global University, FLAME, Symbiosis — pitch smaller class sizes, global exposure, and stronger placement support, at a genuinely different price: often ₹8-15 lakh or more for the full undergraduate programme.
Test any spending above the conservative starting benchmark of roughly 10% of your total education budget against real, course-specific evidence: does the private option's faculty, internship pipeline, and peer network create an advantage you genuinely cannot build yourself through a public-college department plus deliberate outside work — think-tank internships, published writing, or a strong political-science reading list? If you cannot point to a specific advantage, the extra spending is a prestige purchase, not a career investment.
Wherever you study, the material that actually builds real analytical skill is inexpensive or free: PRS Legislative Research's bill summaries and explainers, the Observer Research Foundation and Carnegie India's published research, Economic and Political Weekly, and course material from public-policy programmes many universities now publish openly. A student who reads this consistently for a year builds a stronger, more current foundation than one who paid more for a degree and read none of it.
Building proof before you commit years
A qualification checklist tells you what is formally required. It cannot tell you whether you will actually be good at the work, or enjoy it, before you spend years finding out the hard way. Test that first, using The 3 Gates.
Do not start UPSC prep, enrol in a PhD, or take a law-entrance coaching package before passing all three gates below.
One published op-ed, one policy brief written to a real institution's format, or one data-backed research note on a specific issue — not a general statement that you "like current affairs."
Explain one policy issue clearly to someone outside the field in under two minutes. If you cannot make a stranger understand why it matters, a think tank, newsroom, or client will struggle to trust your writing either.
Get one honest reaction from someone who did not have to give it — an editor who accepted your pitch, a mentor at a think tank who used your note, or a campaign that paid you for a small piece of research.
Practical proof formats that work across almost every track above: a published op-ed or letter in a real outlet, a policy brief written to an actual institution's format, a Model UN or moot court record, an internship at PRS Legislative Research, a think tank, an MP or MLA's office, or an election campaign, and a public archive of your own writing — even a simple newsletter — tracking one specific policy area consistently.
Mistakes to avoid
Families default to civil services because it is the option everyone has heard of, not because it has the best growth curve. Build a parallel skill or income route that survives an unsuccessful attempt — the exam does not pause your bills or your age.
A funded seat, a realistic timeline, and an honest look at how many recent graduates from your target department actually got permanent posts matter more than the prestige of the university name.
Constitutional law, regulatory law, and public policy sit right next to political science. A three-year LLB or CLAT-PG route is one of the most natural multipliers on this entire list, and most students never seriously compare it.
The most scalable option on this list — independent consulting or a commentary platform — is also the one that rewards visible, accumulated proof the most. Waiting for a job title before you start writing publicly is the slowest way to reach it.
It quietly pays better at the manager level than most of the more glamorous-sounding options on this list, and it hires directly from policy research and journalism backgrounds, not only from law or MBA graduates.
What to do next
Do not pick a political science career track from prestige order alone. The label that sounds most respectable at a family gathering is not the one with the strongest growth curve, and the two-stage competition inside civil services and academia rarely gets explained honestly before someone commits years to either.
Pick the track using The 4-Checkpoint Protocol above — your energy, your real runway, current market demand, and AI exposure — not just which title sounds most impressive today.
Then pass The 3 Gates on one small, real test before you commit an exam attempt, a PhD, or a law-entrance season to it.
Reaching earlier financial freedom from any of these nine tracks comes down to a genuine high-income skill portfolio — research, writing, data literacy, and negotiation — built deliberately and proven publicly, not the political science label by itself. Move toward that with career guidance if you want a second opinion on your specific situation, or start with the free career and skill assessments if you are still unsure which track genuinely fits you.