Their professional success may stem from the fact that philosophy students seem more likely than those with other degrees to attend graduate or professional school. Of 20 philosophy majors interviewed from the four universities, only four had not added a graduate or professional degree.

''I suppose I'm lucky I got into medical school,'' said Joseph P. Bruner, who graduated from Nebraska. ''I would have probably wound up parking cars otherwise.''

Or maybe not. Jorge Secada, director of undergraduate studies in philosophy at Virginia, said his students almost always found jobs -- though not in philosophy. ''We are doing better in finding employment for graduates than most majors in the arts and sciences area,'' he said. ''Apparently people in the real world think philosophy majors are well trained. They are trained to think, to analyze. They express themselves well. They write.''

At Texas A & M, philosophy majors -- like math and music students -- are benefiting these days from a job market desperate for computer scientists, said Dr. Leigh Turner, director of the university's career center. Students with such majors are thought to have an aptitude for technology jobs, she said.

In the early days of this century, philosophy was thought of as fundamental to a well-rounded liberal arts education, Mr. Hoffman of the American Philosophical Association said. Considered more than just the teachings of Socrates, Aristotle and Plato, philosophy was regarded as a broad search for knowledge, encompassing the latest scientific and social theories.

But that was before those concerns became independent fields of study, leaving philosophy with a narrower focus. And it was before college-age baby boomers gave way to a baby bust. Cash-starved colleges started looking for departments to trim. And students, watching the cost of a college education at selective private schools soar, turned into pragmatic consumers weighing the economic value of a diploma that could put them in debt by more than $100,000.

By 1994, one survey found that a philosophy course was required at only 18 percent of colleges, Mr. Hoffman said. Between 1992 and 1996, more than 400 standalone philosophy departments disappeared, according to the Directory of American Philosophers. Schools offering a major in the subject slipped from 683 to 660; those offering even scattered courses plummeted from 947 to 606.