People with economics degrees make more than people who major in other stuff (the hard sciences excepted). Economics is hard, but I'm not sure it's as difficult as engineering or other majors. I remember a t-shirt engineering majors wore at Alabama listing the top ten reasons to major in engineering, with #1 being "this four-year degree will be the best five or six years of your life." There's also a lot of room for "on the other hand..." in economics. There's no such thing in engineering. I recall reading--I think in Reader's Digest several years ago--about someone asking about partial credit in an engineering class. The professor denied the request:

"Partial credit?! You build bridge. Bridge fall down. You get partial credit?!"