re: Any wildlife majors here?

No fault thrown.

He was asking about making money with his degree. There are ways to do that, and then there are the jobs in his field. in his case they are not usually one in the same.

Also, being a self-employed contractor is not really running a business. He could do a lot of consulting on the side and pull in some serious money if he chases the work.

I quit a forestry job that only paid $27k a few years back. Was awesome and everything I hoped for.....until bills came. You've got to really love it and cut all expenses to work those jobs. Don't expect to work for WLF either

Doing engineering now because I can't live and progress my life off of that small amount of money

A Masters in that field is not going to get you ~50k unless you're in the position for around 6-10 years and continually getting small raises (which would be rare).

Graduate degrees are not what they're all cracked up to be these days. It depends on the field and employer. Continue getting your professional experience and do what the rest of our generation does - job hop until you find something you truly enjoy while following the money. Only true way to "never work a day in your life" is to own your own business while paying good, trustworthy people to run it for you (and good freaking luck with that).

I keep going back and forth between enrolling in grad school and not doing so and I keep deciding against it because at this point in my "career", I just don't see how it's going to be worth it unless I drastically change from my BA field to something else and ain't nobody got time fo dat!

Good luck and remember - it's not how much you make. It's how much you spend. I took a $17,000/year paycut from my previous job to my current one and I couldn't be happier. Once I learned how to live on what I'm making now, I felt like I hit the lottery!