You might also consider foregoing reproduction.
While parenthood is, in general (so I’m told) a wonderful experience and generally to be recommended, it is deeply unlikely to be a monetarily enriching experience.
Being thrifty by itself will never get you to 1% status - though fail ti be thrifty, and you will never reach it: it is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
To my mind, there are three routes to get to one-percenter status other than marry or inherit:
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Take an entreprenureal gamble on a really good business idea. This will, inevitably, require raising or borrowing even more money from somewhere - so you had better be a convincing salesperson and be, in general, business savvy.
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Join a profession - and choose the right one for the time.
Every profession has a cyclical undersupply/oversupply nature - as described by others above, lawyering is a good example (there has been a serious oversupply recently). Choose a profession where it looks like there will be an undersupply when you graduate from getting whatever credentials you need.
The typical professions that earn in this range are doctoring and lawyering, but don’t overlook financial service providing, accounting and the like. Choose the one where an undersupply part of the cycle looks likey and go for it.
- Have some sort of unique skill or talent that you can capitalize on: sports, acting, artistic, whatever. This is I think the least common route, and probably you would arlready know if it was possible for you by now.
Start a successful business
become a specialty physician
Move to Vegas and become a high class escort
Marry someone rich
That’s generally very bad financial advice for student loans.
It’s not bad advice right now, though (assuming you have no other higher-rate debt.) Rates of return on investments are historically low, so you won’t make money on the money you’re not using to pay down your loans.
Do you have any skills?
There are two types of well-paying jobs in this world - techs and salesmen. Independent consultants are typically both, but the emphasis would have to be on marketing your skills.
Someone like Trump, for example, isn’t the brightest bulb in the candelabra, but he’s excellent at selling things and making others take risks while he collects rewards. Most of Wall Street is salesmen of one sort or other. If you enjoy persuading people, if you have no shame and can lie like the best of them, if you won’t feel guilty when someone else loses their shirt by doing what you told them, while you pocketed the commission - then you may have a Trump-like future.
Simply being a technical expert may get you into six figures, but unless you are lucky, not that far into that. Despite what you may read - Bill Gates’ biggest asset after writing code was selling it but making the right deals.
Wozniak the techie was paid $350 by the non-technical Jobs for a $1600 job, which demonstrates the relationship between tech and sales. We need some of both in the world, but the salesmen seem to take home the much larger share.
If getting into the “top 1% in wealth” were quick and easy, then everyone would do it.
Even high wealth careers like finance, consulting, tech and law incur significant risk of burn-out or getting fired for being unable to manage the 60 to 100 hour weeks, travel and weekend work.
Bankers, venture capitalists and other finance people, business owners (including tech startups) and high-end salesmen tend to earn more than consultants and lawyers (excluding partners) because the latter cap out at the market rate for their services x the number of hours they can physically bill in a day. A salesperson might spend the same number of hours or less, selling a multi-million dollar project.
He has a BS in Economics from Wharton. So he can’t be that dumb.
That is a very forgiving assumption. “Put every penny into paying off student loans ASAP” doesn’t suggest that most other consumer debt will carry a higher interest rate than federal student debt, or that establishing an emergency fund is more important, or that employers might be willing to match the first several percent of 401(k) contributions, earning a quick 100% return on investment.
It’s just horrible advice without any qualifications and very rarely the best thing people should do with every available penny.
Real Estate.
It’s not particularly fast, but it is relatively easy, and if you stick to good locations, relatively safe.
Marry somebody rich.
I think you’re underestimating the difficulties involved in selecting a “good location” and the other things you need to do to manage your investment.
Let me just add that medicine is certainly not a fast way to wealth. Remember that before you can earn anything you will have to spend 4 years in school earning nothing and going into debt potentially as much as $200k or more and then will have to do a minimum of 3 years residency at an average salary in the $50-60K range. You say you want to be in a high-earning specialty? Better make that 4-8 years of residency during which you’ll still be lucky to make $70K. Eventually remunerative? Yes. Fast? Not on your life!
Says who? Those things have some of the highest interest rates of anything going on right now.
You don’t want debt. Period.
I second “don’t have kids”, or at least wait until the loans AND the mortgage are paid off before having them.
LOL.
Marry money.
My goal in life was to be a rich man’s mistress, but it didn’t work out.I never met any rich men,and I’m more adorable than sexy. And I suspect rich men don’t like women who swear like that sergeant in Platoon, and are perfectly comfortable in steel toed boots.
The moral of this story, is “Sometimes we don’t get what we want, have a back up plan.”
Somewhere in the 75k-80k range is the 10% cutoff, so it’s not at all unreasonable or unreachable. It might be tough, straight out of school, unless you’re graduating law school or business school with a really good job, but it’s not at all unreasonable to expect that you might be there in 5-15 years after you graduate, depending on the field.
Making that next 5% is a lot tougher though; you get out of well-paid staff positions, and into the realm of managers, small-business owners, and professional degree holders (lawyers, doctors, etc…), where the pool of available jobs is smaller, and the competition higher.
Making it another 4% points is mostly a matter of luck, IMO. Your small business has to hit it big, or you have to luck/schmooze yourself into some kind of executive position at a relatively big company… and most companies only have a handful of people in those positions.
We’re still saying wealth and then talking about income. I have a fairly good idea of what a 1% income is. I have no idea how much wealth I’d have to control to be in the top 1%. And, yes, I know that the actual value of ‘wealth’ is volatile.
I am not sure either what top 1% wealth is - but I am sure that it is a lot easier to quickly move into 1% income, than 1% wealth.
The reason is clear: most people having 1% wealth will be people who are elderly.
Not only will they likely be people earning 1% incomes over a long time, they will also be the natural beneficiaries of inheritance from their (most likely) 1% income/wealth parents.
In short, moving from a student into 1% wealth will prove a lot harder and longer a road that moving from a student to 1% income … unless you marry that 1% wealth, of course. 
Suffer an unspeakable tragedy due to the obvious, glaring negligence of someone in the top 0.005% who is pathologically averse to publicity.