<p>BA + Federal/State career = mucho dinero, COLA increases, locality pay, etc.</p>
<p>Teachers get good pay after they’ve taught in same school system for a while. In my HS district, there was also an automatic pay increase if you had/got a masters degree. However, this may no longer be very feasible as cutbacks come and it gets harder to get seniority… unless you’re teaching in low-income area and in one of the federal shortage areas. Then you get grants for education + student loan forgiveness as well.</p>
<p>The vast majority of the high pay comes after you’ve gotten experience, not just as a virtue of having the BA. (though you will get to 50k faster if you have a BA vs not having a degree at all)</p>