i come from a family of educators
what's important to understand is not to compare to an average salary - my parents were comfortable, got to travel the world during summers, had incredible benefits packages that dramatically increase value of job if you count that and not just salary
having said that, they both had masters degrees - my father was an econ undergrad, had he pursued a financial related MA at the institution he got his graduate degree in then he'd have easily earned several more multiple, my mother in art history, not so much - she almost certaintly followed the only related career path available to her degrees
likewise, my sister is now a highschool science teach, she also has a masters in biochemistry - had she chosen the pharmaceutical industry she'd certaintly be doing much better than she is now - but she's still comfortable despite that her husband is also a teacher
another sister has an mba but uses that to manage non profits so lol wasted degree right there as well but not for teaching but another "seek the job you want not the salary" pathway
meanwhile my brother turned his masters in becoming an architect, he easily earns more than my parents and sisters would at their peaks combined
me... well i'm the
my point is that you don't become a teacher accidentally and you shouldn't have any more sympathy for them than you would the college grad who works at starbucks who unlike them is most likely not earning less than their degree would dictate but also never meant to be following this path - those are the sad sacks you guys should look out for, not people who knew exactly what they were getting into and still dove in headfirst
if anything, i think making their salaries more desirable would be a bad move because it'd draw in people for the wrong reasons - remember, this is a profession that's incredibly hard to objectively judge so if you have people who aren't passionate about doing it then that's really bad and it's very difficult to efficiently figure out who sucks and who doesn't and there'd be a ton of people taking the job and phoning it in if it paid market rates
Last edited by rickroll; 03-23-2021 at 12:45 PM.