Translation: "Waah! Waah! Waah! The universe isn't recognizing my Extreme Talent. I'm not being paid enough to support my lifestyle or the exorbitant loans I racked up learning the most academically fashionable techniques of verbal masturbation. So instead of flipping some burgers or cutting some lawns, I'm going to sit around with my thumb up my ass for FOUR FUCKING DECADES, default on my loans, and boo-hoo about it to anyone who will listen."
Writing is one of the things I do for a living. I guarantee that a person who wants to make money doing it full-time doesn't actually require a degree in English, journalism, or anything else. What's required is full mastery of high school English, working knowledge of what it is you want to write about, and 40 hours a week to put into the effort. This should start before high school graduation.
University English programs are mostly about obscure literature of the past. They pay for themselves if and only if you wish to teach English in a university setting. If you have any other aspirations, avoid majoring in English. Take it as a minor with a technical degree if you wish (that's actually a very good way to get a steady paycheck by writing), but don't devote actual money to it.
For example, a typical assignment from a university level poetry course might read: "Compare and contrast imagery in 'This Poem" by So-And-So and 'That Poem' by Such-And-Such. 800 to 1200 words, double spaced, APA style citations." A person who completes this assignment gets practice writing an essay and citing quotations, but not much else.
If you wanted to actually cause somebody to compose well crafted poetry, an appropriate assignment would be: "Compose a four-line stanza in iambic pentameter with alternate couplets rhyming. Include at least one metaphor, an alliteration, an appeal to the emotions, and a reference to classical Greek mythology. Phrases must scan well and syllables are expected to match the meter." You almost never see an assignment like this in a modern university. It's because universities don't teach people to write. They teach students to analyze other people's writing and make the appropriate, fashionable mouth noises that correspond to whatever technique the real witer is using. Trying to learn to write by going to university is like trying to learn to drive by studying the schematics of a Ford Focus.
Writer's guides are available to every idiot with a computer and an internet connection. Entire Web sites exist that are devoted to freelance writing. So, anybody who hasn't sold at least one article, story, poem, or other piece of work by age 18 either isn't trying, or is confused about his or her actual skill level, or is confused about what the profession is.
The person who wrote the article clearly doesn't realize what professional writing is, DESPITE HAVING PUBLISHED FIVE BOOKS. The field is not self-entertainment, nor is it the literary equivalent of popping zits. People who wish to write for a living need to practice writing fast, accurate copy in a variety of different styles. They need to be able to do it every day, on subjects that don't interest them, because there's a customer willing to pay for the right words on a page. Maybe it's a tombstone eulogy or a greeting card; maybe it's a technical manual for a new camera.
Incidentally, spewing out yet another book into a world that already contains millions of them does not constitute service to the world or usefulness to society, except to the extent that society acknowledges the usefulness of the book by buying it in large numbers.
The only way a writer enriches the world is by creating something meaningful enough to cause others to distribute it, save it, and hopefully pay for it. It's called "satisfying a customer". It's not an exercise in applied self-esteem. One of the biggest reasons people survive into their forties, fifties, and sixties without having their Extreme Talent recognized is because it DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Stephen King taught English for years. Just saying.