This is a sort of extension of the discussion in my previous post about education. In this instance, a grad school professor of English talks about the lies surrounding the benefits of graduate school in the humanities. In a nutshell: the career prospects suck unless you're already well connected. There's no such thing as a meritocracy (or, not nearly to the degree it's suggested). Professors are self-justifying about this and care not whether their students end up with minimum-wage jobs.
This, to me, sounds a lot closer to reality than the doe-eyed essay about how majoring in something you just super-love will automatically bring happiness and rainbows to your life, job reality be damned!
Again, this is not to say that I'm against the arts and humanities. I was almost an English major myself, and I have friends who work in publishing, or are accomplished artists. I just think that given the volume of English majors in the world, there aren't enough jobs in the field to carry them. Aspiring English majors should be told this, and told of possible related majors and fields that would satisfy their lust for language while giving them more concrete job prospects. Diffuse the students to improve prospects for everyone.
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