Hi, I’m a college student and I’ve been very concerned, to the level it consumes most of my day, about my immediate finacial future right after college if I do pursue a Liberal Arts education (planning to major in Economics). Yes, I’ve been giving a lot of the advices I should just do things for intrinsic values and that will take care of itself in the long run. I have done some research and have found out a person with a liberal arts education, over the span of his/her life, will generate more income and wealth than a person with a specialized degree. However, all of these advices I have received, doesn’t reduce my fears significantly. I’m writing, as an navie, inexperience student, seeking guidance and wisdom from anyone who has any advice on how I can reduce this fear. Any advice on what personal qualities/abilities I should develop, what kind of of knowledge I should acquire. And anything else that will help me to become financially independent within the first few years after college. You can also include any reading material I should consider looking over. Thank you for your time.
“Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill ← awnsers every question you have just posed.
“The richest man in Babylon” by George S. Clason
i have a degree in philosophy and i’m a special education teacher. i never expected that… and i imagine you’ll be in a similar situation. you won’t do anything that has to do with your degree. but yeah, i do think it will work out “in the long run”. so stick with it!! its a leap of faith!! 
The loophole is called graduate school. Get a PhD - they fund you completely (tuition plus living stipend and here’s a secret: even if you don’t get a fellowship, all you have to do is be a research or teaching assistant and your tuition is completely waived and you get the salary that you can live off of) and you become specialized in whatever your heart desires to the point that you will be very marketable. You also get to continue the free lifestyle while pursuing interesting questions that you decide for yourself. I would suggest talking to your professors about this option.
The options you have after finishing the B.A.: Law, Med, Dentistry, MBA(?), and downright teaching of elementary or high school. Depending on your undergrad credits and your performance, you may be qualified for one or more of the above.
The irony is that these professional schools look for people who did well in their studies. Most of the kids who do well in philosophy understand enough not to pursue a life of superficial happiness and mindless ladder climbing. And so they go on to the mountains and meditate 
molelove, let me just say this: i don’t believe you.
can you do anything to prove that?
i believe you if you are refering to someone of the calibre of stephen hawking with a 99% average. but lets say for a straigh A student, that is, 85% average in all courses.
Well first of all, you have to get accepted to a PhD program, obviously. And I can’t assure everyone of that. But if you get accepted, it is the faculty’s responsibility to get you some funding (at least at major universities, I can’t say much about the New Age College of Psychobabble) and once again I am talking about PhD programs, NOT master’s or MBA programs (they don’t offer this kind of funding). Now, within a PhD program of a regular major accredited university, you have two ways of getting paid: one is a fellowship, the other is an assistantship. Assistantships are in the form of either a teaching assistantship or a research assistantship (i.e. working on a prof’s work). These assistantships PAY FOR ALL OF YOUR TUITION AND GIVE YOU A LIVING STIPEND.
If you do not believe, then look up any PhD program online and check out the types of financial aid available. You will find that they ALL have this. Its part of the PhD deal.
The difference between a fellowship and an assistanthip is as follows:
If you are lucky/badass enough to get a fellowship, then you do not have to do any work at all except that of your own intellectual creations and coursework.
If you don’t get a fellowship, you apply for (and your faculty advisor should help you secure a) teaching or research assistantship whereby you do actually have to work like 20 hours a week on something. The thing is that in your first few years as a doctoral student, you are usually just taking a part of your professor’s work anyway (as an apprentice of sorts) and so being an assistant to him/her doesn’t really hinder your own academic work, it just becomes a part of it. Same with teaching - you should be teaching anyway because its an important part of your future CV.
So in the end, funding or no funding, if you get into a PhD program, they fund you.
I’m going to babble on and say more because I swear by the PhD loophole for ANY intellectual who would rather pull their toenails out than work for the corporate world (i.e., me).
The norm is as follows: you apply to work with Dr. Mole Love on her brilliant work on xyz at the Department of Fabulous’s PhD program at University of Whatever.
You get accepted, but poor you, they were unable to secure funding.
Dr. Mole Love is then EXPECTED to pay for your funding (the university takes care of a part of it and the professor’s own grant (of which a part is set aside specifically to fund grad students) by you working on her brilliant latest project on conversational analysis of undergrad postings in the I love Philosophy Forum. While you do all of her dirty work (look up literature on the topic, write some stuff up, analyze this or that, etc), you, in return, get fully funded.
The beauty is that you SHOULD be working on Dr. Mole Love’s work anyway because (a) unless she is a jerk, you will eventually get published with her on this project and if she is a jerk in this way, you should switch advisors and (b) you learn how to be a researcher/academic/whatever which is why you are in graduate school training anyway.
Else, you can get a teaching assistantship where you lead Dr. Mole Love’s discussion sections of her huge undergrad seminar entitled “Moles, Love, and Happiness”. In return for being her teaching assistant, you again, get full funding.
I’m telling you folks, get a PhD!!! You can stay there 4, 5, 6, 7 years living this way and in the end, accumulate a rocking CV and then an academic position doing the same shit and getting paid (not that you’ll ever be rich doing this) or a clinical position or a research industrial position or whatever comes out of it.