Ive been a sub and full time teacher. Let me understand this..... In Ohio, teachers don't pay into social security, teachers have their social security benefits reduced once they are vested in STRS retirement, you pay roughly 20k out of pocket to get a masters degree, credentials, and licensure, then Im paid a low salary on top of it all. Teachers essentially work for free.
Yes, but you could always be in Illinois! At least OPERS/STRS is in better shape than most. 80-some-odd% funded last number I remember seeing. I wouldn't teach back in IL now that I know most places don't make you pay into SS while being ineligible to receive unless you work enough private sector quarters to qualify. IL keeps pushing back the minimum age for benefits and had a criminal governor embezzle from TRS. My MIL lost quite a bit of money from that. My beef with OH is how difficult they make transferring an OoS license and needing to have a sub license sponsored by a district/agency. Oh, and RITA. IL is better at corn and taxes. This'll be the first year I can file OH taxes online because of the OH|ID merger. When I moved here I couldn't file online because I'd never filed online. Rinse and repeat the next year. . .
Lol...I'm from Illinois. Now live in Ohio. Ohio has at least a lower COL and you don't pay high taxes. But I do miss my Illinois roots. Which state is better to teach in? Apples vs Oranges.♂️
Not paying into Social Security and then having benefits cut once vested in the STRS retirement is rough. I admire your passion despite these struggles. I use this FIRE calculator to plan my early retirement, it could help you too.
Kentucky, here. Paid into SS for the two years (1993 & 2022) I was a sub. I paid into the teacher’s retirement from 1994-2021. We cannot collect both SS and KTRS. Luckily I got my MA early when classes weren’t as expensive. My degree was $3250, and I received an extra $3000 salary per year after I finished it. As a retiree I bring home just under $100 less than I did as a teacher, and I get that amount for life. The retirement system was one of the big draws to teaching when I was beginning. Now they have a different system, and without additional investments, retirees won’t be able to make it.
Yes, we do get a cost-of-living increase annually. I don’t know how it compares to SS since I’ve never had to deal with it.
I am retiring this year after just over a dozen years in the profession. Many years were spent in other endeavors prior with a degree other than in education. When I hear my colleagues frequently discuss the pay and benefits of this profession I am intrigued by the following question. Should one's degree in education include more training and discussion about pay/benefits/return on investment? Or would that be considered to be outside the scope of a degree in education?? Would that have been useful to those of you who were formally trained to be educators?
It isn’t something the degree should include because it varies too much by state and type of school. I received my degree in Kentucky and always taught in Kentucky public schools. The information about pay and benefits that applied to me would have been irrelevant to people in other states or in private schools.
While I respect your opinion I am saddened by the people who have found out AFTER the fact that one of the tradeoffs for choosing this profession is financial. isn't there ANYTHING that can be done to educate those who are seeking to enter the profession, Or is it simply another example of caveat emptor in our society???
Do any other professions focus on salary and benefits in the training stages of the profession? Again, it is something that varies a lot depending on where you are employed, so doing it in the training stage would be a daunting task. No doubt people need to be financially responsible, which includes preparing for retirement early, not when they’re ready to retire. I just don’t think that it needs to be done in a university setting. My husband and I worked in two different districts, and both of them provided information about benefits, retirement, and money management. Everyone in the district was required to meet with those representatives every summer.
While I wasn’t ever going to get rich being a teacher, I never felt like I was working for free. I did not live extravagantly, but I lived comfortably. I base a lot of that on being cognizant of finances all the time. It’s not something I could have learned about in a college class and had it be relevant 30 years later.
The teacher next door to you might make the same salary as you but we all have different expenses. Some expenses are unavoidable and some are choices people make. I feel like the people who can't make ends meet (with whichever kind of job you have) do not make good financial decisions and just say they don't make "enough". There are ways to make more $$ but also ways to cut expenses. There are lots more expenses nowadays that we have that our parents didn't have.
There is plenty of information out there for people if they want it. Many people will go through life not paying attention to the consequences of their choices. Some know what the consequences are but do not want to internalize what those consequences really mean. They want what they want and will justify or diminish any negative consequence away. We have a large portion of society that chooses to live their life that way.
Well said!! After giving this further thought I think some basic financial classes and understanding such things as ROI should be required of all freshmen, not just in the education building. Most of the students I teach are seniors. When I here them talking about their school choices, the cost to attend, and their planned academic majors I tend to cringe inwardly. But keep my mouth shut mostly. Although maybe this be taught to HS seniors instead of at the university level. I (sadly) think the schools are more interested in collecting revenue vs. preparing our young adults to be succesful in real life.
