I want to fully understand your argument. Please correct my mistakes.
Your claim is that English/History/Art History (Classics) are good, worthwhile choices for everyone to make. Humanities/Classic majors not only make good contributions to society, BUT they can amply provide for themselves and their family. This fact was supported by the NY Times link. This supports the fact that they are payed well. Your other comments you also say people major in this for "fun", which I understand. You should always enjoy your work..
I felt that the point the original person was trying to make, is that in order for most people to support their family (the other 99% - most of us, the OP, the author OP linked too), we need to make better choices about what we do with our life. The author of the paper maybe should get roommates or live somewhere more affordable. Your argument that art history is a good option for most people because there is a chance that you can get art history degree and become a 1% is a little skewed. Here is an article on a study that does a pretty good job going through the data.
It’s easy to look at that chart and conclude that computer scientists end up wealthier than English majors. But these numbers could be skewed, in that they don’t capture what Weeden’s and Clark’s data suggests: that students born with built-in financial safety nets are more likely to gravitate toward less-lucrative majors. So perhaps, the art history majors who ended up in the 1% were there because their family were wealthy in the first place.
If you want to try to get in to the top 0.2% of the 1%, thats great. However, for the average person getting a degree, that is probably unlikely. The US census has the much more likely outcome (i mean, we are pretty much average, yknow). If you poke around on there, it shows that humanities over a lifetime, earn less then average statistically.
I understand that ~5% of art history majors make it in to the top 1%... but what about the rest of the people getting paid on average less than your typical college graduate?