What are the basic qualifications needed to become a Commercial Pilot?

Get a 4-yr degree in whatever you have an interest and aptitude. You can fly with about any educational background you can imagine. Remember however, that colleges look at the courses you have taken and your GPA. Basic math is what you need to fly, but your GPA will be checked on your college-prep curriculum and math is a big part of that. To get into the CAF and qualify for a commission and a ticket to flight school your college GPA will be examined. You do not need to know how to build or maintain any airplane you want to fly. All the aerodynamics you need will be taught as part of conventional ground school. Earn a degree in something that can support you. The degrees that the pilots had in my squadrons were across the board, from aeronautical engineering to foreign languages to journalism to mechanical engineering. None of us wound up on the dole. Beware of the flight school hype. This is an elaborate process to separate you and your parents from a lot of money. There are almost no seats available now and those that are open are being filled mostly by former military pilots. The least qualified of which have more hours and infinitely better training than you could ever obtain in those pseudo-aviation colleges. Probably you do not have a ton of cash to squander, so invest your time and effort in training for an occupation that will put food on the table. In flight training hours = money, lots of money. If you start flying now you will be burning hours and money for basically nothing. All you do is pay for what would amount to sight-seeing trips with a little stick time thrown in for good measure. Ask any military pilot and you will be told how the military handles flight scheduling and training. You will fly at least once a day, sometimes twice and always twice a day if you have a scheduled night hop. The logic behind that is they know that you learn more and waste little time in review when you fly a lot in a short span of time. That's why ball teams practice every day and sometimes twice a day. No squandered time!