The National Center for Education Statistics has released a new study that found enrollment in teacher prep programs declining “by more than a third over the last decade. Driving this downward trend are concerns about the cost of college and fears of ballooning student debt without the promise of decent pay at the end of it.”
The study revealed that “the state of the teaching profession is an urgent topic for policymakers and the public, especially against the backdrop of increased teacher strikes and walkouts across the country in the past two years. Teacher salaries are far too low, which has led many teachers to work second jobs or qualify for public assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).”
Other findings included that “for the first time in years, a majority of parents said that they do not want their children to become teachers. Due to low salaries, difficult working conditions, and a lack of career pathway opportunities, the teaching profession as a whole cannot compare with other high-status professions such as medicine and law.”
“It’s hard to say it will be very appealing for young [students] to go into a profession that just at the beginning underpays you by about 20 percent relative to other professions,” Emma García, an education economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told EdSurge. “That is a pretty significant cut in your paycheck, and that is a penalty that has been growing for the last couple of decades.”
“I left my teaching job to go back to IT and literally doubled my salary overnight. For the next 2 years, people tried to get me to come back to teach computer science and could never offer more than 60% of what I was making. At some point, altruism isn’t enough,” tweeted @FenianSanta. “A couple of years ago I did the math and figured out that I was making less per hour teaching college than my teenage son was making bagging groceries,” wrote @olivia_meikle.