Took a couple years for me too, finally got it in April 1999. It was a free program for high school students, offered by the college I ended up attending. I was juggling that part time in between school, homework, part time job, etc etc so it took a long time for a PPL but it was well worth the effort for not spending any $$! I wanted to get it before high school graduation too, and made it by a couple months :-)
Obviously there are plenty of programs out there that are cost effective and can get done in a relatively short amount of time if you're looking.