<p>Here in our midwest suburban school district, a 50-year-old elementary/middle school teacher can easily earn $110,000+/year, plus benefits and pension, with an ordinary state school degree. A significant number do. A 50-year old high school teacher can easily exceed $150,000, plus benefits and pension, with same state school degree. And they do. Entry-level teachers don’t earn as much as a Ivy League-degree entry-level attorney, but they also don’t have the Ivy graduate degree, the 80-hour week, or 24/7 job expectations.</p>
<p>Our suburb just hired a new village manager at $150,000, a $60,000 salary increase from his previous position as assistant village manager at another suburb. Nuts. But apparently this was the predetermined salary range for a village manager for a suburban town of 14,000. Nuts again. </p>
<p>For non-Ivy attorneys, well my sister’s non-“white shoe” but big midwest city firm starts “local school” attorneys at $45,000, which isn’t that much higher than a starting teacher’s salary of $40,000. These attorneys are within the DePaul, Loyola, IIT, and Marshall law school grads starting salary range. And there are plenty of unemployed and underemployed attorneys here now.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, with my HYP graduate degree, I still haven’t broken the $150,000 mark.</p>