Can New Teachers Afford Their Student Loans?

AFT's Ed Muir calls bullsh*t on the dopey back-of-the-envelope calculations Cato's Neal McCluskey offered Monday to try to show that starting teachers are rolling in cash. I'll add that neither McCluskey or Ed took into account of a big financial drain on many young-ish teachers: tuition payments for the masters degrees many states require them to get to maintain their certification.

I'm also not sure that starting teachers are the best place to focus in thinking about this issue. When my sister started her first teaching job out of college, she made more than I or most of our liberal-artsy friends did in our first jobs. But over time, those of us who didn't go into teaching have gotten promotions and increases in responsibilities that raised our salaries more rapidly than hers has grown. $34k to teach in Indianapolis may look good to a kid right out of school but the picture is a lot less appealing 10 years down the road when he wants to start a family and his salary has grown less than those of his classmates who pursued other career options.