Here is my advice for you so just take it for what it is worth. I have been working for the airlines for almost 9 years and was a pilot for one because I got furloughed. First off if you want to be a professional pilot now is the time to get your ratings and hours. Get them anyway possible because my honest opinion is next summer June 2010 regional carriers will start hiring again and they will be looking for some high time individuals on the street. Some may keep their hiring mins where they are at now. I can recommend ALLATPS for a great flight training academy and if money is an option there are other schools out there but be careful, except for reputable flight schools, ALLATPS or Delta Connection, do not pay for your entire training up front. You have a BA degree and most regional airlines don't require that and some majors do. They don't care what you BA is in, it is just a box to check.
Now here are some you may or may not know about being a regional pilot. You need to make a very educated choice on which airline you would like to fly at. You need to look at their pay, equipment, track record of the company, quality of life, union or non union, how the company treats the employees, and can you see your self there for 7 years. Also if you plan on commuting to work look at their bases. Your first year pay is not great and is hard to live on but it seems that all airlines even the majors do to you. You will be on reserve or "on-call" and each airline is different in reserve rules. There are days where you get to your overnight late and only have 8 hours from when you land to come back to the airport and fly a long day and sometimes you stay in dumpy hotels. There are days where you think you are done and crew scheduling gets you and you just lost a day off that they will give back to you some other time in the month. Training can be described as drinking from the fire hose and then depending on the airline each year you have recurrent ground school and PC every year for the FO and 6 months for a CA and if you fail you can loose your job.
Personally I loved flying and made the best of it before I was furloughed. To me the good out weighed the bad and even though I had to deal with bad weather, sitting on airplane waiting for the ground stop to lift and being on reserve for a year but I wouldn't have traded it for the world. Good luck to you and keep flying if this is what you want.