As a daytrader, you don't need a degree. I think being a good poker player will help you more than a B.A. or B.S. from a top institution. That said, college courses will definitely help you. Take some classes in statistics and programming and psychology. Potential profits, while probably the last thing you should think of, have no cap. I have seen daily P&L averages of $500 - $5000.


Depending on what your strategy and product is, daytrading varies. For example, you have some intraday swing traders who look to go for the relatively larger intraday moves but still close out all positions by end of day. These guys are probably adjusting now though as intraday volatility is sucky, arguably partly due to the rise in program trading(basically mean reversion stuff that cuts short any move).
You have scalpers. Each has his/her own time frame. Some scalpers literally go for 1 or 2 ticks(in futures) or for a few pennies(in stocks) or a few pips(currencies) on huge size or try to play the (bid/ask) spread making game effectively acting like a mm. They do this over and over however typically they are most active during the first and last regular trading hour. I'd avoid this though, black boxes dominate this area. Other scalpers hold longer, tend to use 5 minute charts as their main screen. This is probably the best place for you to be as a daytrader now. I prefer technicals over fundamentals, particularly as I trade index futs.

At the end of the day, this game is mostly mental and nothing else.