By Andrew Pillow
Many teachers are saddled with student loans. Student loans are a fact of life for many young urban professionals however, teachers are underpaid so they often don’t really get the long-term benefits that are supposed to come up with an increased education level.
NPRed sums up the challenges faced by classroom teachers in their article, Teachers With Student Debt – The Struggle, The Causes And What Comes Next:
“I am overloaded and struggling. It’s terrifying.”
“I feel like I’ll be making the last payment from my grave.”
“It is an albatross around my neck. Years of paying and I feel like I’m getting nowhere.”
“Help!”
Those were some of the comments we received from more than 2,000 respondents to NPR Ed’s first Teacher Student Debt survey.
Teachers are paid significantly less than many other highly educated professionals. We decided to take a look at student debt among teachers specifically, because we see it as a crossroads of several big trends: chronic concerns over teacher pay amid calls to improve teacher quality; the rising cost of higher ed; the increasing reliance on loans to pay for it; and changing policies from the Trump administration.
Read the full study here. (NPR)