Is there any way to have a subquery return multiple columns in oracle db? (I know this specific sql will result in an error, but it sums up what I want pretty well)
A Subquery in the Select clause, as in your case, is also known as a Scalar Subquery, which means that it's a form of expression. Meaning that it can only return one value.
I'm afraid you can't return multiple columns from a single Scalar Subquery, no.
Here's more about Oracle Scalar Subqueries:
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14200/expressions010.htm#i1033549