I'm sure there are plenty of people who have successful careers based on visual arts degrees: my SO is one. Their sibling, however, is the counterexample: her degree was just a vague attempt to put off adult work, and she now lives back at home with her parents, doing nothing.
FTA I posted:
> "There is nothing wrong with the arts, psychology, and journalism, but graduates in these fields have lower wages and are less likely to find work in their fields than graduates in science and math. Moreover, more than half of all humanities graduates end up in jobs that don't require college degrees, and those graduates don't get a big income boost from having gone to college."
They aren't, as far as I can tell (my wife is a successful visual designer). They tend to be started by individual designers who find a successful niche, or (less often) design collectives that band together to hire business staff.
That's not the point though. The bulk of these people are getting majors they never use. I would argue they should never have been pointed in the direction of an industry they don't have the aptitude for, no matter what their 'dreams' are.
Most of them work in media and advertising where they make a great living.